


Out to the Last Night

by AngstyWriter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Actual enemies to lovers that try to thirstily kill each other, Aftercare, Angst, Brainwashing, Dark Kylo Ren, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Jedi, Knights of Ren - Freeform, Light Rey, Lima Syndrome, Love/Hate, Master/Apprentice, Psychological Torture, Seduction to the Dark Side, Sharing a Bed, Sith, Slow Burn, The Dark Side of the Force, The First Order, The Force, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, This is dark but its not darkfic, Torture, Touch-Starved, Whump, but I still hate you, characters from all sw media including canon and legends will be showing up, darkside users, enemies to uneasy friends that are still enemies, its complicated, its for the angst karen, light side users, none of this I just glare at you and trade witty barbs weak pg13 romcom shit, the resistance, this is all planned out and will not be abandoned, to hey your kinda hot, to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:19:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngstyWriter/pseuds/AngstyWriter
Summary: “So, you are the little desert rat that has caught the interest of our respected Lord Ren,” he spat. “You don’t look like much. Too skinny for even a rancor to take interest.”Rey shrieked, trying to twist out of his grasp, pulling at the cruel bonds. But her struggles did nothing to stop the needle from digging into her flesh. The medic’s thumb pressed down on the plunger, and soon her eyesight began to blur, muscles falling lax, and she collapsed back against the stretcher, unable to fight against whatever drug had been injected into her.After the fight on the now destroyed Starkiller Base, First Order forces have captured Rey. The call to the Light and her friend’s at the Resistance is strong...but will the seductive darkness of Kylo Ren and his fabled Knights be stronger?
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Kylo Ren
Comments: 84
Kudos: 94
Collections: Finish Your Fics: NaNoWriMo 2019





	1. Kore

**Author's Note:**

> Phew, nanowrimo was a marathon where everything in my real life went wrong lol. Thanks to the Reylo Finish Your Fic Anthology for keeping me accountable and cheering me on, and encouraging me to post this story that I've been brainstorming over the last two years. My heart goes out to my two lovely beta's,  
aNerdObsessed and qotsisajakk. I don't know what I'd do without them. They were kind enough to lovingly tear my writing apart and help me build it up again into something readable. Also, credit where credit is due, thank you to qotsiasajkk for the synopsis! If you're reading this, then it worked better than anything I could have come up with. This is my first fic I've ever posted, so please, be gentle, but also let me know what you think in the comments so I can continue to improve and be able to give you, the readers, the best product I can. Alright, here goes...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kore- (Greek) the maiden, the girl, a name of Persephone

Red. 

Pain.

Beep! Beep! BEEP!

Siren?

Where… ? 

A moan escaped Rey’s cracked, iron-tasting lips, wheezing through the shooting pain in her ribs.

“General!” a man shouted nearby. 

Rey squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth, whimpering as the sound of his voice pounded against the inside of her skull. The nausea from the constant swaying and jerking accompanied by metallic creaking and groaning and the sound of unknown objects of various sizes and materials being shook loose and crashing to the hard floor.

“What?” another masculine voice snapped in a clipped accent, sounding harried and annoyed.

“She-she’s awake, General,” the first man replied while another violent shudder made the world tilt.

“Well, put her under until orders come back from the Supreme Leader!” the second man said in exasperation.

“But General, what about what Lord Ren said?”

“Does he look like he’s in any condition to be giving orders? Besides, I don’t want to deal with one of his tantrums. Just knock them both out until the Supreme Leader replies.”

A third set of booted feet raced closer, stumbling when the ground shook again with a screech. “General, Lyessa Ren is trying to make contact,” a female voice said, out of breath.

“I do not want to deal with the Knights right now. This is a military action, I don’t need any deranged magicians getting in our way. Shut down all comm links but our own until the Supreme Leader makes contact, and get us out of range of this blasted mess the rebels have made!”

“Yes, General,” the woman replied, and her booted feet hurried away.

A pair of heavy footfalls came closer, their pace thoughtful and deliberate. Rey chanced a peek, carefully opening her eyes just enough to peer through her lashes at a tall, painfully thin, pale, red haired man dressed all in black military garb looming over her. He looked strained, stressed, and almost ill.

“So, you are the little desert rat that has caught the interest of our ‘respected’ Lord Ren,” he spat. “You don’t look like much. Too skinny for even a rancor to take interest.”

Rey bristled and tried to keep her half lidded eyes on him, though the light seemed to burn straight through her sockets into the back of her brain, and she nearly vomited when another tremor shook through the floor and everything pitched forward, objects rattling around, and the man took a few stumbling steps to right himself before continuing his assessment.

“Maybe a Kowakian monkey-lizard could find you palatable. Apparently Ren has the same tastes… I guess that’s an apt comparison between the two species. They do look rather alike,” he smirked, scratching an ear. 

The red-haired man pivoted around suddenly and bellowed, “Medic! Where’s that anesthetic?”

“Here, sir.”

“Have you attended to Ren yet?” the red haired man demanded.

“No, sir,” he said nervously.

“Put him down first!” he stomped his foot, spittle flying from his lips, cheeks suddenly flaming dangerously, startling Rey into a violent twitch that left her gasping.

“Oh, yes, sorry sir, right away.” The medic scurried down the hall.

Rey lay panting in agony after the sudden jolt, her entire body shaking uncontrollably, tears spilling from her eyes.

“So you are awake,” the red haired man sneered.

Her eyes flew fully open to meet the pale green ones above her. 

“I suppose while I have you in my captive audience I should let you know that you are in the custody of the First Order,” his lip curled up into a sneer. “Any escape attempts or assault on my officers, soldiers, and staff will be met with quick and severe punishment-”

Suddenly a sound like an injured wild animal made them both flinch, Rey wincing at the sudden movement. They swung their heads around to look at the closed door behind them, beyond which the sounds of crashing and banging could now be heard, accompanied by inhuman growling and panicked screaming.

The man looming over her closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose “And by pain of death, you better not end up being as much trouble as Ren or I will push you out into the cold blackness of space, so help me, I don’t care what the Supreme Leader says about his ‘training’.” 

There was a crash and another scream.

“This is what I wanted to avoid…” the man swept out of the room, through the sliding door, and out into the hall beyond. The door slammed shut with a hiss of compressed air.

As soon as he was gone Rey tried to sit up, gritting her teeth to keep the bile from rising up her throat, and weakly pushed with her arms, but was dismayed to find that her wrists had been cuffed to a stretcher. Her wide eyes jumped up to the durasteel door as more shouting, pounding, and animalistic rage continued outside the room. Looking down at herself, she sucked in a breath. Her tunic was shining molten red in the severe lighting. Fresh blood soaked the right side of her rib cage, staining the canvas she laid upon. 

The door hissed open. A man with brown hair flying out of the gel that seemed to have melted in the sweat dripping down his face came racing in with a syringe in hand. He met Rey’s frightened gaze and halted in his tracks, staring at her in shock or fear, she wasn’t sure. Then just as quickly as he’d frozen, he set his mouth in a grim line and marched across the room with the syringe held out threateningly.

“What is that?” Rey yelped hoarsely, sore muscles tensing for a fight that only ended up constricting her cracked ribs.

The man paid no heed. He held her right arm down with all of his weight and brought the needle to the crook of her elbow.

“No, no, no! NO! Stop! NO!” Rey shrieked, trying to twist out of his grasp, pulling at the cruel bonds, but her struggles did nothing to stop the needle from digging into her flesh. The medic’s thumb pressed down on the plunger, and soon her eyesight began to blur, muscles falling lax, and she collapsed back against the stretcher, unable to fight against whatever drug had been injected into her.

“Is she out?” the frazzled, arrogant voice of the red haired man called through her hazy consciousness.

“Yes, sir,” the medic replied.

“Good. Go see to Mitaka. Ren knocked him about a tad, after you left. Oh, don’t give me that look. Ren’s incapacitated. For the moment.”

Then everything faded to black nothingness, and the pain blessedly slipped away, left in the land of the waking.


	2. Hades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hades- (Greek) the underworld, inferno 
> 
> She turned to enter the next perpendicular passage, when suddenly a prickling sensation began raising the hair on the back of her neck. Her knuckles turned white as she slowly turned her head. 
> 
> There, she saw the nightmare that haunted even her waking thoughts; tall and broad, swathed in flowing black. 
> 
> Kylo Ren was gazing at her, perfectly motionless - impossibly so - like the shadow of a statue of some horrible god of death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta's are the literal best. I re-wrote this chapter idk how many times, and they went through every single draft with me and gave invaluable notes and edits. Thank you [aNerdObsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aNerdObsessed/pseuds/aNerdObsessed) (be sure to check out their phenomenal fics) and  
qotsisajakk for everything!  
Updates every Sunday, but will try to post as much as possible before tros! All planned, chapters written ahead, just needs editing. So subscribe and check back often!  
(Notes at the end of the chapter).

_Inhale._

_Ow!_

Rey moaned and turned her head to the side to take in her surroundings. The fuzzy world seemed to spin and pulse in a disarray of gray and white. Her stomach turned. She closed her eyes and drew another agonizing breath of the sickly sterile air.

_Kriff_, she thought,_ broken ribs again._

_Where am I?_

Wherever she was, it was very cold, her body shivering and teeth clattering together.

After the nausea settled a bit, Rey peeked through her lashes and saw a sterile metal wall a few paces away from her.

She was still queasy, but managed to move her head slightly to take in her surroundings. It looked different than the last time she’d opened her eyes, and was devoid of the violent tilting and screeching of metal. Gritting her teeth, she tried to lift her head, but instead flopped back limply against the pillows. Pillows?  
She was no longer on the same canvas stretcher as before, and now wearing a disturbingly thing tunic-like garment, her skin scrubbed pink. She tried not to think about who might have changed or bathed her, or wonder where her clothes were.  
Rey closed her eyes and tried to breathe as shallowly as possible.

_So dizzy. _ _I must be drugged. Not getting up anytime soon until they wear off a tad more at least._

  
Thinking felt like trying to run up a sand dune in the hottest part of the day, sticky with sweat under a heavy pack of scavenged parts on her back, thoughts nothing more than ephemeral sand trickling through her fingers.

_I have to get home._

She was captured by the First Order with the map to Luke Skywalker, something she didn’t even know could be taken from her, something she never wanted. And now she had to protect it...

What if she just gave it to him?

_No_, Rey admonished herself. _Don’t even think about it. He’ll just kill you immediately. The only way to get back home is to escape, or die trying._

She remembered the feeling of being strapped to the cold interrogation rack, and those desperate, hungry, black eyes burning like coals into her soul.

The image of Han’s work-hardened back, run through with a blazing red lightsaber, frozen...then falling, falling off the bridge into the abyss. Kylo Ren standing triumphant in the flickering red flame of his weapon.

Rey wouldn’t let that be her.

Wriggling her arms and legs, she found once again that all of her limbs were bound to the bed. When she flexed her arms, a twinge ached around her right wrist which was wrapped in pristine white bandages. Her arms were covered in scrapes and cuts, some with strips of adhesive bandages, but no bacta patches.

_Why heal the prisoner before you kill them,_ Rey thought wryly.

Kicking out as hard as she could, grunting and screwing up her face, but immediately fell back breathless as agony shot up from her left ankle through her leg.  
Straining her neck to look down, she saw her ankle was trapped within a stiff white cast. Panic began to settle in a swirling storm inside her stomach at the knowledge she was tied down. With no escape.

_“Please!” little Rey cried, pulling at the coarse rope that bound her hands, scrambling in the scorching sand. “You can’t leave me here! The sun!” she sobbed._

_“Oh, you think you deserve to be tied up in the shade, maybe with a cushion and bowl of fruit do you? Lazy thieves need to be reminded that food is earned, not stolen!” Unkar Plutt kicked her hard in the ribs._

_She crashed onto her side in the dust, snot and tears immediately sucked up by the greedy sand._

Shuddering, she finally managed to push away the memory, though her heart was racing and she could still feel the ghost of raw wrists and coarse sand.

If she didn’t escape she was sure much worse was in store than any beating from Unkar Plutt.

Rey choked back a sob; the dire present situation was all that mattered. Despair wasn’t going to help her now. It had never gained her anything in the past.

But there was one advantage she had- she was no one, a scavenger. She would just have to scrap her way out, like she always had. She would somehow escape and get back home, before Kylo Ren could attempt to rape her mind again and find the map, or else the Resistance was lost.

Not that she ever wanted to be part of some rebellion for the Galaxy. She only ever had herself to worry about. How ironic that now the entire Resistance and Luke Skywalker depended on her, some sand rat from nowhere, for their continued survival.

What had she been thinking? Fighting off Kylo Ren wasn’t like fighting off other scavengers. What had overcome her to reach out and call that lightsaber to her? It was as if she had opened her mouth and out sang an ancient hymn she had never heard before, but somehow her soul already knew it. And why had the saber leapt so willingly into her hands, as if it wanted to be there?

And Finn and Chewie… were they even alive? They’d actually fought for her, something she couldn’t remember anyone doing for her since - since she was a child.

She’d been gone too long. What if her family had already come, and she wasn’t there? Would they wait? Or would they assume she was gone, desiccated somewhere in the shifting sands that had sucked out the souls of so many? But she hadn’t died there, and by R’iia, she was not going to die here.

Opening her eyes, she slowly turned her head and began looking for weapons or tools within her reach; a sharp edge, a nail, a weak point in the shackles, anything. But there were none. All she had was herself. And… the Force?

Closing her eyes, she tried to recall that power suddenly racing through her veins when Kylo Ren had her pressed on the edge of the rapidly expanding crevasse on the imploding Star Killer Base.

Peace; that’s what she had felt as she closed her eyes and the snow swirled around them, twinkling in shades of crimson, sapphire, and violet. And then… rage. It was a fury that had burned within her like an exploding supernova; everything in its path would be destroyed.

But it had started with peace? It didn’t make any sense, turning peace into rage.

Taking a breath, she attempted to feel that peace again. But what if she never got free?

Images of a black billowing cloak and mask approaching, a reaper coming for her soul, materializing out of the swirling snow… Her limbs frozen in the forest on Takodana, her finger unable to pull the trigger… strapped to a cold interrogation rack, sharp tendrils of thought like jagged wire piercing her mind, cruelly pulling out her memories and thoughts...

An animalistic scream tore through her chest. She arched and pulled at her bonds.

_SNAP_

Rey fell back in shock. Looking down at her wrists, she found the leather manacles torn in two. Angry red marks were already forming around her wrists. Slowly, she began raising herself up on trembling arms, barely managing to muffle a scream as shooting pain laced through her burning ribs. She would not give in to her body’s weakness. Snarling, she bent her knees, and turned herself around with a groan until her bare feet dropped to the cold durasteel flooring.

Goosebumps rose all over her body. There was a keypad to the right side of it. Praying it wasn’t locked, she pushed herself off the bed but nearly fell backwards, overcome by agony and nausea. Clinging to the mattress, she barely remained upright, her ankle throbbing and wobbling dangerously in its cast.

Dry heaves contracted her abdomen. Coughing up bile, she lost her balance and fell on hands and knees. The injured wrist gave out, and her lank hair swirled free over her eyes.

Cursing under her breath and spitting out the taste of vomit, she slowly dragged herself on all fours towards the door on shaking arms. Eventually she managed to pull her body up onto her shaking leg, using the durasteel wall to support herself and reached out to the keypad.

Looking at it, she instantly recognized the symbol for ‘open’, having seen it on many of the wrecks she’d scavenged from. Reaching out a trembling hand, she pressed the button, fully expecting the door to remain closed. But to her utter surprise, it immediately slid open with a hiss of compressed air, revealing a long, brightly lit, and ominously empty hallway lined with similar doorways.

Silence. Not even the beep of machinery. Just the low rumbling of an engine that told her she was on some kind of ship in flight. Slowly, limping out while still holding onto the wall for support, she glanced both ways and back. But there was no one in sight.

Not wanting to stop and decide if this was a good or bad sign, she continued limping down the hallway. When Rey reached the end, clinging to the wall for balance, she turned to enter the next perpendicular passage. Suddenly a prickling sensation began raising the hair on the back of her neck. Her knuckles turned white as she slowly turned her head.

There, she saw the nightmare that haunted even her waking thoughts; tall and broad, swathed in flowing black.

Kylo Ren was gazing at her, perfectly motionless - impossibly so - like the shadow of a statue of some horrible god of death.

Rey was frozen in the empty gaze of his mask.

Letting go of the wall, she tried to break into a hobbling run, wincing with each step onto her injured leg. There were no echoes of following boot falls. Just her panicked breathing.

Turning a corner, she tripped over her other foot and landed hard, further bruising her hands and knees. But she didn’t stop, crawling as fast as possible. Not until she finally stopped to pull herself into a standing position did she hear soft steps approaching.

Then, directly behind her, the low-pitched, mechanically distorted voice whispered with a puff of air behind her ear, “What did you hope to accomplish? Where do you think you can possibly go?”

Rey grit her teeth, continuing to cling to the wall and take shaking steps, pain striking up her leg with each step onto her cast. He walked quietly behind her, taking one small step for three of her teetering ones. His dark presence was just out of her peripheral view, as if he was the cold shadow of the underworld pressing against her back, pushing her onward to what final end she could not know.

Her gait faltered and her kriffing ankle gave out once more, sending her tumbling on her side and crying out, tears now falling freely down her cheeks. The swish of cloth, like black feathers, grazed her bare calf. Rey shuddered.

Two large black boots stepped in front of her.

There was a quiet beeping sound, and then he said, “We’re ready”.

The sound of a door sliding open sounded nearby as Rey twisted her neck to see him speaking into a comm-link on his wrist. The clattering boot falls of a group of three Stormtroopers rang out as they approached, blasters raised. She tried dragging herself across the floor, but one of them bent down, flipped her roughly onto her back, making her cry out from the jostling of her ribs, and slipped one arm under her shoulders and the other behind her knees.

Rey struggled in the soldier’s firm grasp as they scooped her up. The white armor smelled of sweat, some kind of cleaning agent, and the scent of a lubricant she had applied many times to parts she’d repaired back on Jakku.

“Put me down! Let me go, you karking poodoo!” she growled, though it came out more like a whimper as she tried to pull the medical gown down to protect her modesty. It was a lost cause though, and she decided to forget her pride and concentrate on trying to free herself.

The masked shadow of Kylo Ren lead the way as the Stormtrooper carrying her was flanked by the other two, both of them holding blasters trained at her head. She rolled her eyes. Of course having their blaster at that angle they were just as likely to shoot each other at the same time they shot her.

Rey jammed her elbows into the solid armor, kicking her feet out, growling and cursing at her captors, trying not to further aggravate her ribs in the process. She was satisfied when the soldier carrying her let out a few grunts of exertion as she twisted weakly in their armored grip.

They carried her straight to the room she’d just escaped from, dropping her unceremoniously on the bed. With a shaking leg, she kicked at the Stormtrooper who’d carried her, but missed when they stepped quickly out of the way as the towering black robed shadow approached.

“You broke the leather,” the lifeless, mechanical voice sent chills down her spine. “Would you prefer metal cuffs? I’d hoped to avoid those. You will only injure yourself further fighting them.”

“I will fight anything you try, and I will escape again!” Rey spat through clenched teeth.

“Yes, you might,” he said, staring at her prone form. “If I choose to let you.”

She wrinkled her brow, confused.

“I just allowed that little freedom run and was watching you the whole time,” he replied.

“Then why didn’t you stop me?” she snarled, trying to sit up, but her arms didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

“Because I wanted you to see that escaping will get you nowhere,” he replied, standing still as a looming shadow. “There is no way out. You are on a First Order ship in deep space, far from any habitable planets. Even if you do leave this room there is nothing for you out there but highly trained military personnel, and myself. It’s not worth you hurting yourself attempting something this fruitless.”

“I’ve beaten you before, and I can beat you again,” she said to her wan reflection staring back at her from his mask.

“Almost. You _almost_ bested me,” he corrected. “And I was severely injured at the time. But now, so are you.”

“I will get out of here,” she promised, her mind already racing, trying to come up with a plan.

“You should relax, sleep, and let yourself heal. Then if you want to hurt yourself once more, you can try escaping, though I doubt you’ll get far.”

He turned to leave.

“I’m putting a passcode on the door, so there’s no use getting up,” he said calmly, tapping on the keys with long fingers, each button beeping ominously at his touch. The door hissed open, and without a backward glance, he and the three Stormtroopers marched out into the hall. Then the door slid shut, leaving her in solitude.

Rey wasn’t giving up so easily. She could re-wire anything; been doing it all her life, she reminded herself nervously.

_I have to get back home to wait for my family,_ she cajoled herself.

Groaning in exhaustion, her trembling arms pushed her body to the edge of the bed, trying to carefully roll herself off it. Once again she crawled, inch by inch, to the door.

Rey glared up at the keypad above her. She had barely pushed herself up on her elbows when the door opened, scrambling backwards in surprise.

“I said you’d only hurt yourself further.”

She shrank away from the lifeless, mechanical voice, scooting back across the floor.

Once again a Stormtrooper bent down and picked her up, ignoring her feeble growling and cursing.

“Put me down, karking sleemo!”

And they did, back onto the bed. This time though the black-shadowed wraith himself wrestled her arm back into metal manacles that he cuffed to the bed frame instead of leaving her free.

“Stop! Stop!” Panic bubbled up in her throat, her chest tightening at the helpless panic of being restrained.

_…“You can’t leave me here! The sun!”…_

Kylo Ren paused suddenly and his black visage looked down at her, reflecting her blanched wide eyed face before snatching her other wrist with his black leather clad hand.

“Stop…” She tugged weakly at his iron grip as the restraint clicked around her wrist.

_…“I’m sorry, please, please, I won’t do it again!” she crawled towards him and grabbed his thick gray ankle._

_“I’m sure you won’t, after I leave you here tied to this pole for a whole day without water or food. Maybe then you’ll learn the true value of them, and remember your place, little scavenger.”_

“I’m not going to leave you here without food and water,” Kylo Ren’s cold voice suddenly pulled her breathlessly out of the dark memories.

“I said, get out of my head!” Her cheeks burned in humiliation and outrage. She didn’t want anyone to see that memory, least of all her enemy.

“I’m not your enemy. And if you weren’t so forcefully projecting your thoughts then I wouldn’t have seen them,” he said.

“Not my enemy? Yeah, right, because you handcuff all your friends…” Rey was cut short as the door hissed open.

A group of people in similar styles of green military clothing entered the room accompanied by all sorts of ominous looking paraphernalia.

One man had a wheeled bucket and mop which he immediately began using to clean up the bile she’d spat out on her first escape attempt. Another woman was pulling a silver pole that was also on wheels, and a third man pushed a metal cart with a giant case on top. These two walked swiftly to stand beside her head.  
The man opened his case, which she could see out of the corner of her eye was filled with an array of shiny and very sharp looking medical devices.

“What is that?” Rey thrashed against her bonds as the man pulled out a needle attached to a cross on one end. “ NO! No, no, No!”

“It’s just a catheter,” Kylo Ren said above her.

Putting a name to it didn’t change the fact that it was still a long sharp needle, and her struggling only intensified as the woman dabbed a cotton ball that smelled sharply of alcohol into the crook of her elbow.

“Hold still,” said the mechanical voice as he tied a strip of rubber tightly around her bicep.

But Rey couldn’t hold still, and she was not going to let them do whatever it was they were trying to do to her without a fight.

His gloved hand shot out and suddenly her whole body froze, just as it had in the forest on Takodana, and she watched in horror as the man brought the needle to her elbow. She couldn’t even flinch as it punctured her skin. Then the woman handed him a clear plastic tube that he clipped onto the port of the plastic cross at the top. Suddenly Rey felt a chill seeping into her veins.

“I’m going to let you go from my Force hold, but there are some conditions. I have given you an IV of saline and vital nutrients. If, after this bag of fluids is empty, you’ve behaved and haven’t tried to escape, hurt yourself, or tamper with anything, we’ll see about giving you some painkillers. Maybe even a blanket. But those have to be earned. The First Order does not offer these luxuries for free, and we can’t have you re-injuring yourself if you try to escape once you’re not feeling quite so incapacitated. Do you understand?”

Rey glared daggers at him, wishing she had her staff and could knock that helmet off his head and beat in his face until it was nothing more than a bloody pulp of skull shards, brains, and ripped flesh. With a defiant grimace she tried to shove the violent image at his mind with all her might. Though it took a few fumbled attempts, she swore she felt him flinch, even though he stayed perfectly motionless.

“It’s acting on thoughts like those that will make you lose the privilege of having painkillers,” he replied stoically. “Best not to think them and risk temptation.”

Throughout Rey’s whole life she had dealt with injuries without painkillers, like that time she broke her arm when the old wreck she was scavenging from partially collapsed and her rope lost its mooring. She could handle this, and smugly tried to project that notion to him with an image of her falling from the hull of a dreadnought, then sitting in her AT-AT biting her lip as she wrapped her broken arm with slices of orange cloth from the mummified corpse of an X-Wing pilot, then more snippets of memory of her arm tied into a sling while doggedly scavenging day after day until it healed.

“While it’s admirable you’ve survived without anesthetics in the past, you should know that you already have some running through your system at the moment. You have been on them continuously for two days. They’re wearing off, however. Your ribs are broken in several places, though I’m assuming you’ve already gathered that. Left ankle fractured, and your right wrist is sprained. You have some bruises and a few bone contusions. And there is a severe blaster wound on your ribs from that idiot Stormtrooper.” He clenched his fist.

“It did quite a bit of serious soft tissue damage,” he continued, “especially since you are so underweight. Being malnourished won’t help speed the healing process up. So I’d recommend trying to relax until that IV bag is empty, and then get your painkillers.”

Rey couldn’t help the feeling of dread that dropped in her stomach and tightened in her throat. Was there even hope to escape with all those injuries? How had they all happened?

Kylo Ren still had her frozen in place, so she couldn’t shout back the profanities that she started projecting at him.

“Creative, I’ve never heard some of those,” said Kylo Ren’s voice, echoing in his mask as that of a ghost in a tomb. Then he and the others, having finished packing up their supplies, turned and left through the door. Only after it closed did the Force hold he had on her break and she was able to move again, gasping, trying not to hurt her ribs.

Rey tried to swallow back the tears that stung her eyes.

This was going to be a long battle of wills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, who are you betting on in this "battle of wills"? And what will 'winning' look like to each character? What exactly is Kylo trying to get out of Rey? Curious to hear your thoughts on each characters motivations! Any (polite) feedback is welcomed! This is my first fic so I want to be sure I'm writing the best fic I can for you!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @ angstywriterangst
> 
> Also, in case people's thoughts immediately went to pee when they saw the word 'catheter', this medical term isn't just for urine lol. They can be used to access to the bladder or intravenously. (According to WebMd) "A catheter is a thin, flexible tube that can put fluids into your body or take them out." 
> 
> My beta was like, 'are you sure you want to use that word?', and while I could have used something like 'cannula' (a thin tube inserted into a vein or body cavity to administer medicine, drain off fluid, or insert a surgical instrument. It contains a retractable needle in the inner core to 'pave the way' into the body), that wasn't the piece of equipment I was describing, and I always try to use the correct terms (though I'm shit with definitions). I am quite familiar with a lot of medical terms and equipment, so I figured, since not everyone is, maybe I'll educate someone today.


	3. Melas Oneiros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Melas Oneiros' is Greek for 'black dream' or 'nightmare', dark winged spirits (similar to bats) that roost in the branches of the Elm tree near the entrance to Hades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG people! Can you believe we're only five days out from TROS?! I'm seriously losing my mind. I'm probably gonna cry when the scrawl starts and won't stop until a month afterwards. Thank you fellow reylo's. You have supported me throughout the last few years that have been the absolute hardest of my life and given me a community and something to put my little bit of extra energy into. I even began writing again, the product of which you see before your eyes (though I'm not exactly sure of the quality lol). I have met so many lovely people. You all are aces. Thanks again to my beta's aNerdObsessed and qotsisajakk and the reylo fanfic anthology! 
> 
> Updates every Sunday. Chapters written ahead, just need to be edited. I'm hoping to get up chapter 4 before tros though, to really get the plot going. Hopefully up by Wednesday. Subscribe!

Rey lay shackled to the bed, spread eagled, just the way Kylo Ren had left her. The anesthetic was indeed wearing off, as that monster had promised.

She tried breathing as little as possible to appease her broken ribs, eyes seeing stars from lack of oxygen, even holding her breath, trying to reach that painless, black oblivion. Swirling memories of ropes and chains flashed every time she felt cuffs holding her limbs immobile. 

_ “He better show, it isn’t easy smuggling dark wolves off Srilurr, let alone transporting them through space,” one Weequay said to another, tapping a crop on his thigh as he leaned against a crate from which a low growl was emanating. _

_ Head down, Rey tried to side step past him through the narrow streets of Nimma, but stumbled with the heavy pack of parts on her back, crashing into one of the smugglers that stood. _

_ “Out of my way, scavenger scum!” he yelled, turning around and striking her with his crop. _

_ Rey grunted, dodged, and pivoted to deliver a swift kick to his ribs, but was unbalanced by the weight strapped to her shoulders and unable to grab her staff. _

_ Falling into the sand with a cry, her legs were caught by one Weequay’s brown calloused hands. He bound legs to keep her from escaping by one Weequay while the other began beating her arms and feet. _

_ “I ought to sell you, little shutta! Serves you right for-” _

_ “Stop!” Unkar Plutt cried, waddling up and hauling the smuggler off Rey. “That’s one of my best employees and I’ll thank you to keep your hands off her, or you won’t get off this planet alive.” _

Rey tried to comfort herself with the knowledge that Kylo Ren wouldn’t kill her as long as she had something he wanted. Most likely he would torture her enough to make her wish she was dead, but never give her that sweet escape in the hopes that she’d relinquish the map just for the privilege of an execution and the end to her pain. No matter what though, she had to be strong. She couldn’t let Kylo Ren get the map to Luke Skywalker. 

She’d never achieved anything in her pathetic life. 

_ The least I can do is save the entire kriffing rebellion, _ she thought wryly.

Kylo Ren probably wasn’t going to give her painkillers. Just empty promises as he inflicted more and more pain. Why he hadn’t started torturing her yet, Rey couldn’t guess. Some kind of mind game, trying to slowly wear her down.

It felt like an eternity, laying there with nothing but her recollections for companions, or perhaps it was only minutes, but eventually there was the hiss of the door sliding open and she heard soft booted steps coming towards her.

Rey cracked her eyes open to see the ominous shadow towering over her, a reaper blocking out the light. It held out a glass vial in front of her nose and she could smell the leather from its black gloved fingers.

“This is your anesthetic.” His looming figure fixed her with the dead stare through his mask, voice rumbling through the vocoder, pitched so low it vibrated in her chest. “But before I give it to you I need to hear you agree that you will not attempt to move from this bed, injure yourself, or tamper with any medical or mechanical devices in this room.”

Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, Rey resolutely turned her head away from him. She would not submit to this murderer. She was stronger than that.

Soft footsteps turned and walked away, then the beeping of the keypad, the swish of the door opening and closing. And she was alone.

A sob threatened to wrack her body, but instead she bit her lip, and held her breath. Crying would solve nothing, and would only hurt her ribs more. Images of Finn’s smiling face blossomed in her mind. Would she ever see that face again, so warm and earnest? She’d hardly known him for a day and yet, she felt like she could call him… a friend. She’d never had many of those. It was too dangerous. 

Unbidden, the visage of a smile on the dirty face of a girl in the desert bubbled out of her memory. The smile never quite reached the girl’s large, dark, soulful eyes as the little kinky curls that had escaped from the three buns on top of her head tickled her dark face. 

Rey shut that image out as fast as she could. That was a face she could never let herself see again. 

She tried thinking of the cold winds and the pale pink sun of a new day that she loved to watch by climbing up the tallest wrecks. She’d leave her AT-AT when the gray light of dawn just barely made it possible to navigate across the dunes, while it was still cold from the frigid desert night. Her favorite wreck was the _ Ultimatum _. 

It was situated at an angle, which made it not too difficult to climb up its wing, which was broken off at the tip. This created an alcove to sit on and dangle her feet over the edge. She could see forever from up there; all across the graveyard of battleships, all the way to the horizon, and Niima Outpost to the south, which looked like just a cluster of miniature buildings from that height and distance. Further on, in the opposite direction, the sacred village of Tuanul was just a tiny speck.The wind blew rippling designs into sand, R’iia’s Will, or R’iia’s Hand was what Teedo called it. They said their goddess wrote her will in the sand, and that some Teedo could even read it’s meaning. Rey had never seen anything mystical in the swirls and lines, but there did seem to be an elegant pattern to it all. Maybe there was some hidden significance. 

Up there, suspended above the desert, she could snatch a few minutes of tranquility in the chill dawn before setting about the dangerous and grueling work of scavenging for any usable or repairable parts that she could clean to offer up to Unkar Plutt in exchange for portions of synthetic, dehydrated food. Then at sunset, after she’d eaten, she’d scratch a line into the wall of her AT-AT to tick off yet another day spent waiting. 

How long had she been gone? At least two days, that’s how long Kylo Ren had said he’d been pumping her full of drugs.

She was in no state to travel, though. She could barely breathe because of her injuries, and the pain in her body was building, stealing the peaceful thoughts she tried to imagine for herself. Biting down harder on her lip, her salty tears began mixing with the sharp taste of iron.

What else could she think of? She searched her memories for any calming thoughts. BB-8, that funny little droid with his snarky quips that she loved so much. No. The island in the ocean, from her dreams… water crashing against its sheer, craggy cliffs and spray-flecked shores. What was an ocean like, she wondered? Was it as big as the lake on Takodana? It seemed bigger in her dreams.

The burning of the skin above her broken bones was building in intensity. But she couldn’t cry; crying made everything hurt worse.

The door hissed open once again, and those same disturbingly soft footfalls came close once again.

She held her breath and cracked an eyelid to see the image of her nightmarish captor removing the now empty IV bag on the tall metal stand beside the bed. It was well out of her reach even if she wasn’t tied down. Too bad, it looked like it would make a good weapon. It may not be as good as her staff, but she bet she could beat in that mask with it all the same.

“What are the conditions for this?” a black glove held out the tantalizing glass vial to her again.

Rey glared, lip trembling, head spinning from lack of oxygen. Could she hold out any longer? Ever pragmatic, she realized she couldn’t escape like this. Her pride would have to be set aside for now. 

The black ghostly form turned away from her with a swirl of fabric and stepped towards the door.

“Wait…” she wheezed.

The masked figure spun slowly back to face her.

Closing her eyes, she whispered, “I... won’t try to escape.”

“And?” The shadow returned to stand above her.

“And what?” she growled back, her cheeks burning in humiliation, heart beating harshly against every aching crack.

“What about trying to leave this bed, or any medical or mechanical equipment?” 

Rey took a slow shallow breath and held it. She hated giving in, being forced to beg. She was weak.

He began to walk away.

“Alright. I won’t tamper with anything, or - or move…” she exhaled, held her breath, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes.

“Or harm any employee or items of property belonging to the First Order?”

Gritting her teeth she bit out, “Sure, just give me the kriffing pain killers!”

Without warning, the black helm was taking up her entire view. Rey shrank back into the pillows away from her own fearful wide eyed reflection as he slowly turned his head to regard her. She could feel the hiss of his breath coming through the mask, warm against her cheek, the folds of his cowl rippling across her own shoulders and neck, the ash-scented cloth suffocating her.

“I’ll be holding you to your word,” he warned. “There will be consequences if you break it.”

Just as abruptly, he pulled away. Rey stared up at the ceiling, trying to evoke a stoic demeanor to his attempts at intimidation.

A sound made her jump and she whipped her head around to see him attaching a new bag to the IV stand, then securing the glass vial to it. 

Again she felt as if a bucket of cold water was being dumped into her arm. Suddenly, she felt like the world was spinning and she was beginning to float far away.

“Wh-what did you give me?” she slurred, trying to work up enough energy to panic, but her eyelids were closing against her will.

“Don’t worry, it’s supposed to put you to sleep,” said a voice that sounded like the whispers of the dead echoing up from the crypt as she drifted away into the dark oblivion she’d been craving since she first woke up to this hellish reality.

***

Distorted voices. What were they saying?

Muffled sounds. 

Pain. Someone was touching her ribs. 

She tried to pull away, to cry out, but she couldn’t. 

The air was cold on her naked torso. Something cold and wet was being wiped across her skin. Then she was lost in the darkness. 

***

_ Where am I? _

_ Cold… _

There was a pressure on her ankle, then her wrist. Someone was touching them, moving them. It hurt! 

Blackness. 

***

Her eyes wouldn’t focus, the world spinning in a dizzying kaleidoscope around a black nightmare above her. Shuddering, Rey cringed away. She just wanted to go back to feeling nothing, where no nightmares lurked, and no one could hurt her.

The hellish visage was whispering deep curses and incantations. She couldn’t understand whatever language it was. For a brief second it felt like metal wires were scratching her brain, but the sensation was gone as quickly as it came. The voice said something again, but she still couldn’t make it out.

“E chu ta,” she mumbled, trying to turn over, but her arms and legs were caught on something. She tried to wake up from the night terror gripping her.

“Wake up. You need to eat something,” the voice commanded, and a sense of dread filled her as she began to wake up out of the hazy dream state.

Was he speaking Galactic Basic? Why would anyone be talking to her in Basic, unless… slavers? Her heart raced. 

This wasn’t a bad dream. She needed to wake up now! Why couldn’t she wake up? She tried to open her eyes, but her lids were so heavy. All she could make out was a what looked like a black skull.

“Remember our agreement?” the black skull spoke with a voice like death.

Rey moaned trying to tug her wrist out of whatever had trapped it. She couldn’t get free! Her muscles wouldn’t work!

“What are-where? Let me g-go,” Rey stuttered through thick lips as her brain fumbled through the fog, limbs flopping weakly as she struggled more urgently.

“I’m here to bring you food.”

Something nudged against her lips and she flinched in surprise. It smelled like something savory, and she caught the tang of leather. It made her stomach turn. 

The black skulled creature nudged her again, trying to worm its way past her teeth, which she clamped down. Rey couldn’t figure out if it was a mask or a species she hadn’t encountered yet.

“Eat,” it commanded.

Rey turned her head away. Suddenly the crown of her head was held in a vice like grip, fingers threaded through her hair, then she was coughing and spluttering as hot savory liquid was shoved into her mouth. Her head was pulled back by the hair to force her to swallow. She tried squirming away, eyes watering, but her limbs were all held down, her neck pulled back,, barely allowing her to breathe between spoonful after spoonful that he shoveled down her throat. 

Finally, the fingers in her hair loosened and she collapsed against the bed, hacking and gasping for air.

“What is that?” she coughed.

“It’s vegetable broth,” the monster replied calmly. Whatever drug was in her was still clouding her vision.

“You know,” she tried to inhale but ended up coughing again. “You know, you could have just uncuffed me,” she wheezed for breath, “and I would have eaten it myself you con dopa-maskey karking poodoo!”

Suddenly her throat was being crushed. Her hands instinctively tried to fly up to her neck, but of course couldn’t move. Eyes tearing up, her chest began to convulse, trying to pull in air that wasn’t there, black edging around her blurred vision. 

A black gloved hand flung out across her view.

“Either you eat it- the way I deign to serve you, or I force you,” the stranger said in a stilted but hollowly practiced manner, his fingers slowly contracting into a tighter fist. “A lesson it would behoove you to remember well.” He looked at his hand through the mask, drawing a shaky breath. Then he shoved, and she was flung down, red-faced and limp, ribs burning with every cough.

When she was finally able to lift her head, she squinted hard, trying to focus her glassy eyes.

“You…” she gasped, as realization filled her drug hazed brain with sobering terror, drawing back towards the wall until her shackled limbs were stretched to the limit.

The black gloves reached up. There was a click and a hiss, the exaggerated jaw protruding out like a vworkka raptor, and he removed the mask.

“Yes, me,” Kylo Ren stated, looming over her, his black cape hanging down from the cowl about his broad shoulders like the folded wings of a bird of prey. His mask was missing, revealing long, lank black hair, waving gently to his shoulders, framing his austere, bruised face, shockingly slashed diagonally in half from brow to neck by a serrated, scarlet, wound, barely held together by black webbing, but it couldn’t completely hide the raw burnt meat she’d left with the lightsaber of Luke Skywalker. His skin was so pale that it looked as if he had not seen the light outside his mask for years. He was almost translucent, like a ghost in shadow. His dark eyes stood out in contrast like burning onyx, their piercing gaze rimmed by purple and red mottled skin, making him look like he was possessed by a manic, sleep-starved energy. 

Despite his haunted and scarred appearance, he sounded so, well, normal. Instead of the cold, raspy, bass distortion from the mechanization of his mask, it rang out a richer timbre than she remembered from the last time she’d heard it on the interrogation rack. 

His expression, though, was unreadable as he stood unflinching in her horrified, unfocused gaze. And yet, the battle-hardened monster before her could not fully hide, his mask of stoicism could not conceal that he looked beaten in more than body.

But he was still a murderer. Rey chastised herself for having even a flickering of compassion for this creature.

She should feel like vomiting at the thought of being fed like an invalid by this monster before her, by those hands that were stained with the death cries of so many. Here she was, drugged and tied down, being hand-fed by a man who she’d witnessed murder his own father in cold blood, and who for all she knew, had possibly even killed Finn and Chewy as well. A shiver of revulsion shot up her spine. 

How could she have let this happen to her?

“Do you need to use the restroom? I can send for a female staff member to take you if you’d like,” he said in that same emotionless voice. 

Rey didn’t reply.

“Well, do you?” he asked her again in exasperation.

Her first instinct was to refuse everything he offered, but she couldn’t deny that she did need to relieve herself, and no amount of stubbornness was going to change that. Hating herself, she nodded mutely.

“Alright, I’ll comm someone,” he said, and brought his left wrist up to type in something. 

After he finished typing his message he looked back down at her with his head slightly cocked. “Careful. You’re going to pass out if you keep hyperventilating.”

Rey hadn’t realized she’d been breathing so hard, and tried to slow her breath. 

“You know, what you were thinking earlier, about understanding Basic,” he mused.

“Get out of my head,” she muttered, staring at her feet, trembling.

He paid her request no mind and continued, “It’s part of being Force sensitive, having the illusion of the ability to learn languages quickly. You’re not actually learning the languages so much as pulling the meaning from the other person’s mind. You’re remarkably good at it, too. I wonder though, about your uncanny use of Basic with barely a trace of an accent, if perhaps you spoke it as a child with your parents.”

She glared and curled her toes in helpless rage. Did he know? She winced, feeling mental barbs delicately stroke her skull.

“Yes, I know you were abandoned on Jakku when you were very young,” he said, again passing into her psyche uninvited. “I saw it in the interrogation room. You’ve been thinking about it obsessively ever since you arrived. You project images and feelings quite strongly. And yet somehow...”

Rey screwed up her face, trying to push Kylo Ren’s assault of her thoughts out like she had on Star Killer. But her grasp on the Force felt like reaching for pure water in a muddy stream. The drugs made every function difficult, the world still spinning in hazy distortions.

Without the ability to push the mental intruder out, she closed her eyes to block out the shaking images, and was about to hurl a few choice Huttese phrases at him to see what he thought of her supposed _ remarkable ability _ to speak many languages when a beeping startled her.

Kylo Ren looked down at his comm-link, then reached behind him to the back of the chair he’d been sitting on to grab his mask that was hanging there. With a hiss of machinery he placed the helm securely onto his head. 

Rey shivered.

He walked to the door, cowl swirling behind him. 

She listened closely to the different tones of each passcode button, trying to memorize them, thinking perhaps she might not have to rewire the keypad after all. If she ever got out of these shackles...

The door slid open and a middle aged woman with dark hair slicked back into a tight knot at the nape of her neck stood with a ramrod straight spine and slightly clenched fists at her sides.

“What can I do for you, Lord Ren?” the woman asked, looking anywhere but at the towering black figure stepping aside from the doorway before her.

“The patient needs to use the restroom. She’s been under heavy sedation for most of the day, so she’ll need to be supported,” he said, voice once more distorted by the mask.

“Yes, sir,” the woman nodded and took a tentative step into the room, then walked quickly over to the bed, Kylo Ren right behind her.

“Wait,” he commanded when the woman bent to unclasp Rey’s ankle restraints. “I am the only one to ever release her.”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said, eyes wide, stepping hurriedly out of his way.

Kylo Ren fixed Rey with the dead stare of his mask.

“I’m going to take off these restraints. Once out of them you are to follow every direction given to you without pause or question, do you understand? You’re too weak to fight back, just make the right choice. It’s a privilege to get out of these.” He tapped the leather around her ankle, making her flinch. “If you lose that privilege I doubt you’ll like the alternative, which is using a bedpan.”

She looked away and nodded.

“I need verbal agreement. Repeat to me what the conditions are for being out of these restraints,” he said firmly.

“I won’t fight back,” she growled under her breath.

“And?” 

“I’ll follow directions,” she added reluctantly. She hated giving in, feeling utterly powerless. Even more so after he unclasped her restraints. 

Standing up, the world began to spin faster and faster around her. She swallowed, trying to keep the broth down. Up was down, and down was up. 

Her body began to shake uncontrollably as the woman put Rey’s arm over her shoulders. Then the ankle in the cast gave out completely underneath her weight, gasping as her breath was stolen by shooting pain straight up her broken left leg. 

The woman had to practically drag Rey to the restroom, which was through a door behind the head of the bed. Kylo Ren followed them, like a shadow out of the corner of her eye. That was the worst part. Having _ him _ see her so weak and vulnerable.

He stood outside the open door of the bathroom the whole time she was in there. At least he turned his back. 

_ Why can’t he just leave the room, or close the door at least? _ she thought, imagining what damage she could do; first knock over this First Order sycophant watching her pee, then crack open his mask like an egg and bleed him like a yolk. If she could just reach that IV stand…

Something tickled her brain.

“Because I don’t trust you yet,” Kylo Ren answered her unspoken thoughts. 

Rey jumped in surprise.

“You may be unskilled with the Force, as your abilities are just awakening,” he continued, “but I’ve seen what you can do when you really want something. And judging by the images you’ve been thinking this whole time, you’re highly motivated to find a weapon to beat that woman senseless before attacking me.”

The woman stiffened and a flash of fear crossed her face.

“Thus,” he continued from the doorway, “despite your current condition, I think it best if I stay.”

Kylo Ren dismissed the woman after she helped Rey back to bed. As soon as she was gone, he removed his helmet, putting it back on the chair beside the bed.

Rey sat up on her elbows, eyeing him with trepidation.

He reached out a large hand, wrapping his long gloved fingers firmly around her wrist. She pulled back instinctively, but it was her right wrist, the injured one. She cried out, but he held on, following her movement, allowing her to recoil without resistance, but refusing to let her go.

“You’re going to hurt yourself. Just relax,” he said.

“No! Karking sleemo!” she shot back.

“Rey,” he said her name dangerously. 

“Don’t call me that!” she spat, trying to twist away from him towards the wall.

“Don’t call you by your name? What would you rather I called you? Perhaps by one of the invectives in Huttese you’re so fond of?” he asked patiently as she writhed in his grasp. “Rey, what about the deal we made? Getting out of these restraints is a privilege. I don’t think you’ll enjoy having to use a bedpan.”

She growled under her breath in response. The drugs were wearing off, she could feel clarity coming back to her. She didn’t want to return to the drugged haze where nothing made sense.

“Make the smart choice here,” he said.

Scoffing harshly, Rey rolled her eyes.

“You’re going to be put back into the cuffs whether you like it or not. But if you don’t cooperate you’re not going to get out of them for a very long time. Do you want that?” 

Rey glared defiantly at him, a promise that she would kill him one day.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” she spat. “I’m never going to give you the map.”

“We already have the map.”

Rey felt her stomach drop as her jaw grew slack. “What…”

“In your weakened and drugged state I was able to pry it from your mind.”

_ Oh no, oh no, oh no… _ What would Finn think of her? BB-8? Chewie? Han… She’d betrayed them all. 

“You didn’t betray them. They betrayed you.”

“Th-they never betrayed me!” she spluttered.

“Yes, they did,” he fixed her with a hard gaze. “They took advantage of a young, talented, lonely girl starved for companionship who would do anything, even risk her life doing the bidding of a terrorist organization, for any scrap of acceptance or compassion, and then abandoned her when she fell behind.”

“That is not true!” 

“Then why didn’t your hairy beast save the traitor and leave you to die?”

This gave Rey pause, her mouth hanging open and closing voicelessly.

Kylo Ren continued, unperturbed, “If you weren’t all on your own, would you have stolen a run-down piece of garbage and killed three First Order Pilots, at the behest of a complete stranger?”

“I-I stole a run-down old ship because I was being shot at by TIE-Fighters and chased by Stormtroopers! And I didn’t kill them, that was, it was because-” 

“But you did kill them. And the attack was never meant for you. You were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.” 

“But- if you have the map to Luke Skywalker… why am I still alive?” Rey began to shake, horror creeping its way up her spine. She had nothing left to bargain with, no chips to bet against. 

“If you’re dead you can’t be my apprentice.”

Her breath trembled, eyes wide in terror. Kylo Ren wanted _ her _. “No, no I’ll never be you’re-”

Suddenly he outstretched his palm and froze her arm with the Force. She watched, horrified, as it was lowered to the surface of the bed. 

“Stop!” she yelled, bucking violently.

He took her wrist and began to buckle it into the cuff. However as soon as the leather was pulled tight a leaden weight dropped painfully in her stomach.

_ …“You can’t leave me here! The Sun!”… _

“Stop fighting, Rey,” a distant voice said. But all she could see was a large, wrinkled, gray ankle.

Then the memory shifted, and she saw a man’s leering face, his skin leathery and wind chapped. His breath stank of decay, and he was missing many teeth. The remaining ones were yellowed and rotten. 

_ “She’ll fetch a pretty price after we clean up all that dirt and grime,” the slaver said, his foul breath a moist puff on Rey’s face. She wrinkled her bloody nose. _

_ “We’ll have to drug her though, after what she did to ol’ hammerhead,” he gestured behind him to the Ithorian who was bandaging a bleeding arm sporting bite marks all over it. _

_ “Do not call me that!” the Ithorian said in his strange accent which made even Huttese sound beautiful. _

_ The slaver turned around to face the Ithorian, “I’ll call you whatever I kriffing…” _

_ Rey kicked her knee up and slammed it squarely into the slaver’s scrotum between his large thighs. He stumbled forward. She jumped onto his back, swinging her arms up and over, linking her bound wrists over his head and around his neck. With a battle cry she used the chain to savagely squeezed his airway. The metal dug into his flesh, and as she jerked his neck back blood began trickling down into his brown shirt’s dirty collar. He choked and reached up, scrambling at her hands. She twisted them harder. _

“Rey, _ calm down _!”

She looked up into dark eyes above her. She realized she was screaming, flailing, kicking out, pulling violently at her wrist which was tied to the bed with the strap of leather.

“Rey, stop,” Kylo Ren commanded in a dangerous voice, “you’re going to hurt your wrist!”

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop her jerking limbs. Overlaid over the image of the sterile room and Kylo Ren’s pale skin and haunted eyes were flashes of the Jakku desert sprinkled with blood. 

Next thing she knew, a black leather glove was reaching out to her. She twisted away, but it found her temple, throwing her into the cold black void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooo! What do you think about Rey becoming Kylo Ren's apprentice? And what do you think of his 'training' methods so far? Do you think Rey will fall to the dark side? Or will she give Kylo a run for his money? And what will happen to Luke?  
Brainwashing is something that has always fascinated me, so finally all my random research is about to be put to good use!  
Come say hi on tumblr @ angstywriterangst
> 
> Huttese translation courtesy of Wermo's guide :  
con ( inferior)  
dopa-maskey (two faced)  
kark (expletive, fuck)  
poodoo (shit)


	4. Khaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Khaos (chaos) is the beginning of all things.
> 
> (Rey and Kylo answer a summons. Let the angst thicken.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tros is here. I can't see it until Friday and it's killing me! But it's already out in the rest of the world so Fuck You Disney! I've been dark on the internet to avoid spoilers and I'm dying. But for all you lovelies, here is an early chapter this week in celebration of the time that hath been foretold.
> 
> Because of my freaking tf out over tros, Christmas, Hannukah, and my beta's qotsisajakk (who I'm sorry I still can't get the link to work for) and  
aNerdObsessed (who I am also editing a chapter for on Sunday, read thier fic it's so good!) will most likely not being able to help whip chapter 5 into shape by Sunday, I know it will not arrive on time, so I'm sorry to say you may have to wait until Sunday the 29th at the earliest, but then we will be back to our regular weekly Sunday schedule. 
> 
> Sending love to everyone, especially if this is a difficult time of year for you. Feel free to shoot me a dm on my tumblr @ [angstywriterangst](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/angstywriterangst)  
However I won't be on tumblr until after I see tros on friday.

“Rey, wake up.”

Rey kept her eyes stubbornly closed. She’d been conscious for quite some time, but saw no use in actually being awake. The boredom was suffocating. She’d do anything to do, well anything. Arguing with Kylo Ren was the best part of her days, if they could even be called days out here in space without daylight. It was all melding into one long, cold, hungry blur. Even on Jakku she had never quite felt this same kind of hunger. Kylo Ren had assured her the broth he was continuing to feed her contained every nutrient the human body required, but she still felt like she was starving, like a desert flower watered without sunlight. 

How many scratches did she need to catch up on inside the walls of her AT-AT? There was probably a pile of sand to sweep out of the entrance. Hopefully no other scavengers or Teedo’s had looted the place of her meager belongings.

“I know you’re awake.” 

At a sudden sharp jibe into her psyche, Rey growled, shoving him out of her thoughts and opening her flinty gaze to find his gaunt one surveying her with a heavy brow.

He held out a cup of water to her lips. Wrinkling her nose disdainfully she turned her head to the side as usual, despite how dry her throat was. 

“Do you want it or not?” he demanded with a withering look, obviously annoyed with her pointless little daily rebellions.

Glaring so he’d know exactly what she felt about him feeding and watering her by hand every day, Rey turned her head back and put her lips around the rim of the cup. He obliged by tipping it back. She drank deeply until it was empty, leaving behind a few stray trickles of water running out the sides of her mouth and down her neck. She always marveled on how pure and clean the First Order’s water looked, though found it disconcerting that it tasted like traces of chemicals were left behind, and wasn’t sure if this should worry her more than the inescapable dirt that always settled at the bottom of her cup on her home planet.

Kylo Ren turned behind him and put the cup down on the small metal table beside her bed, his movements stiff and hurried, almost unusually anxious if she didn’t know better. 

“I’m going to uncuff you. What is our agreement for getting out of them?” he asked. His face seemed pinched and even paler if that was possible, eyes rimmed by dark bruises from sleepless nights.

“No tampering with any kriffing First Order property, attacking anybody who deserves it, or hurting myself,” she replied, licking her cracked lips. 

His black eyes followed her tongue as he said, “Yes, and follow every order immediately. Without question.” 

He began to undo the restraints on her legs, then her arms. “Today that will be especially important if you wish to continue living.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “And why is that?”

“Because we have been summoned.”

“Summoned?”

“By Supreme Leader Snoke.”

“Why?” she hedged, wincing as she flexed her chafed wrists, rolling them slowly.

He didn’t reply, his gloved hand indicating a pile of black cloth folded neatly on the table next to her empty cup.

“Clothes.”

Rey struggled upright and leaned over to grab them, then paused and arched an eyebrow at him. “I’m not changing with you looking. Could you leave?”

“No,” he said frankly, then turned his back.

“How do I trust that you won’t turn around?”

“Trust is earned. And an apprentice should always trust their master.”

Snorting, Rey rolled her eyes. As if _ he _ knew anything about trust. 

She really would prefer it if he left the room entirely, but this was the best he ever gave her. Huffing, she pushed up on shaking elbows and sat upright, grimacing as her ribs protested, waving unsteadily as she found her balance. Her other injuries had mostly healed, the bruises and cuts fading, but her cracked ribs and fractured ankle still pained her. However, the most painful injury was the torture of constant imobility, and the weakness that had seeped into her limbs. 

Pulling the black long sleeved tunic over her med-bay gown was more difficult than just shedding the gown first, but she didn’t trust him for modesty’s sake. Even though he had never turned around when he stood right outside the open bathroom door when she used it, or when she changed gowns and cleaned herself with moist wipes, she didn't trust him for modesty's sake.

Reaching under the tunic, she slipped the med-bay gown off her shoulders and wiggled it down to her waist. Even the underwear was black. But it was better than no underwear, she thought and pulled them on, then the black leggings and socks. The left sock was a little difficult to stretch over the cast that still entrapped her ankle, but managed by stretching the fabric to its maximum capacity, grunting and straining with her shaking arms.

There was just one article of clothing left that she was unsure of. It was small and stretchy, like a tight shirt cut off just below the breasts. After holding it up and turning it this way and that, she suddenly realized that it must do the same job as her breast wraps. She didn’t want to risk taking the tunic off with _ him _, so instead pulled her arms out of the sleeves, held them tight to her body, then awkwardly stuck them up through the neck hole to wriggle the strange breast band on over her head. It quickly became apparent that this was much harder than the tunic had been, but eventually managed with the help of some choice curses.

“Don’t even dare think any of those words when we meet with the Supreme Leader,” Kylo Ren warned, his back taut in front of her.

Rey grunted and adjusted her clothing, rubbing the sturdy fabric between her fingers.

“Are you finished yet?” he snapped. 

“Yes.”

He turned and gave her a perfunctory assessment before reaching for his helmet that sat on the back of the chair behind him. Placing it on his head, he secured it with a hiss, its exaggerated jaw sliding back into place. Then he bent and produced a set of binders that Rey hadn’t noticed until now.

Rey gulped.

His deeply distorted voice behind the mask said, “Give me your hands.”

“Oh, come on,” she rolled her eyes, feigning confidence she didn’t feel when faced with such large and heavy constraints. “What am I even going to do? You’ve made it abundantly clear there’s no use running away.”

“Give. Me. Your. Hands.”

She hesitated, but knew it was inevitable. Trying for a contemptuous look instead of a fearful one, Rey held out her arms, trying to stop her hands from shaking. The cold metal locked around her raw skin with a loud click. 

_ Sand. _

_ Blood. _

_ Ropes. _

_ Whips. _

Kylo Ren took her elbow and hauled her up from the bed, jerking her back into reality. 

She cried out, trying to wrench out of his grasp, but her legs, weakened from injury and disuse, wobbled out from under her. She was only saved from falling by his iron grip.

He didn’t look at her as he hauled her out the door. 

Digging her feet in, Rey managed to get her balance and stand tall, peering around curiously as Kylo marched her down the hallway. It was the first time she’d ever been outside her med-bay room since that first failed escape attempt. As before, the corridor was empty. His long legs strode too fast for her to keep up and she winced as her broken ankle twinged with every limping step.

“Slow down,” she panted, dizzy from even the short exertion. 

He ignored her, increasing his pace until he was practically dragging Rey behind him. He pulled her around the corner into another corridor, empty except for a little black mouse droid that beeped as it passed them. At the end, there was another locked door that Kylo Ren opened with another code before tugging her through the threshold. 

Keeping guard on either side of the doorway was a pair of stormtroopers, except their armor was black. They dropped their blasters to their sides to salute, saying, “Lord Ren”, in passing.

He didn’t acknowledge them, never slowing as Rey stumbled behind and looked longingly at the blasters held so casually and within such close reach…

A bone crushing squeeze on her arm made her yelp and attempt to leap away. She whipped her head around to find Kylo Ren’s mask still looking forward.

“Ow, stop, you’re hurting me, sleemo!” Rey spat, tears pricking her eyes.

His grip hardened. 

Suddenly, he dropped her arm. She tumbled to her knees without his support, her shackled hands barely keeping her from slamming her face into the durasteel floor.

Rey glared up at her reflection in his mask, panting against her aching ribs.

“Do not dare to think any thoughts of that ilk before the Supreme Leader. Or you might live to regret it,” Kylo said softly above her.

Curling her lip, Rey bared her teeth, about to let loose a string of curse words for his pleasure. 

Quick as a flash, he bent down to her level. She could feel his burning eyes on her, and a vice like shroud enwrapped her brain, squeezing until she winced visibly.

She closed her eyes at the feel his cool breath hissing out of his mask onto her face.

“He will not be as forgiving, nor as given to gentle reprimands.”

Kylo Ren stood up and without looking back began to stride ahead. 

She knew he wouldn’t let her go far. He was just making a point of how little power she had. That he didn’t have to physically force her and she had to follow, which of course meant he also didn’t have to hurt her. He just enjoyed it. 

Rey took a shaking breath and tried to stand, but it was difficult with her ankle in a cast and her arms cuffed together. 

Kylo Ren’s back disappeared around the corner of the long hall by the time she managed to gain her footing.

Limping at her own pace she grit her teeth and headed towards where she had last seen him, passed a group of people dressed in tightly pressed military uniforms that gave her questioning glances as they passed with ram-rod straight spines, but left her alone. 

Kylo Ren stood, facing away from her, halfway down the hall, motionless as a statue. It was only as she neared him that she could see his cloak fluttering, almost unseen, like feathers against the breath of a bird with every subtle rise and fall of his chest.

Rey paused a few paces behind him, breathing heavily, her brow wrinkled in agony as her ribs screamed against the expansion of her lungs. 

“I will give you an anesthetic for the pain if he allows you to leave with me,” Kylo Ren said as he began to walk at a much more reasonable pace for Rey to follow.

She wanted to argue that they weren’t necessary, that she didn’t want to be forced into unconsciousness, but her laboured wheezing prevented any words from leaving her mouth, which admittedly might be a good thing in the moment. She didn’t know what to expect from this Supreme Leader, and knew there wasn’t a hope Kylo Ren or anyone else on this ship would do anything to help if Snoke decided to kill her. 

She was on her own. As she always had been. 

They came upon other humans. Rey noted that they oddly seemed to be the only species onboard. Granted she couldn’t be sure about the masked stormtroopers, but somehow knew they were all human too, though wasn’t positive how she could be so certain.

Eventually they came to a heavily guarded giant arched doorway. No one looked at them.

Rey froze. 

A choking darkness whispered to her from within, reaching out with oily fingers to beckon her inside.

Kylo Ren yanked on her arm and dragged her inside the cavernous chamber. Encased by a towering ceiling with an obsidian black floor, the red walls glimmering, the very air seemingly pulsing like the heart of a growling beast. Faceless guards vested in crimson armor stood at attention around the perimeter with various weapons that Rey could swear she felt vibrating with menacing intent. She wished for her staff now more than ever, feeling naked and exposed.

In the middle towards the opposite wall was a raised dias with a gigantic throne carved in stone, framed in simple geometric shapes.

Rey inhaled and held her breath. Upon this throne sat a shockingly tall humanoid in a golden robe, with the most scarred and deformed face she had ever seen. The sickly yellowed skin stretched like thin aged leather over his bald skull, pitted and covered in age spots. Half his crooked jaw and cheek seemed to have been scooped out of his face, leaving the skin slack and hollow on his left side where there should have been bone. But his eyes were a brilliant, cunning blue.

Kylo Ren halted, his hand tightening around her bicep before releasing and dropping to his knees. 

Frozen by the piercing eyes of the being before her, Rey fought the urge to flee, instead jutting her chin out as the Supreme Leader’s thin lips stretched into a deformed mockery of a smile. 

“Ah, finally. Young Rey. I see my apprentice was accurate in his description of your obstinate pride.” Snoke tilted his head in pensive observation before chuckling. “There’s no need for those kinds of pretenses.” He narrowed his icy gaze and swept his hand through the air. 

The cuffs around Rey’s wrists clattered to the ground, echoing in the cold of the audience chamber. She shook out her stiff arms, rubbing feeling back into the numb skin, instantly feeling safer with her hands free, and surreptitiously began scanning the room for a weapon, again taking nervous note of the disquieting guards along the walls.

Snoke tilted his head, observing her silently before saying, “Yes, you are the perfect means to his training. So like himself in the beginning. Wouldn’t you agree?” He suddenly turned his attention down to Kylo Ren’s hunched and subservient form just behind and to the side of Rey’s socked feet.

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” he replied, still diverting his gaze to stare at his masked reflection in the brightly polished glassy floor.

“How are her wounds?”

“They are healed enough.”

“Good,” he said dismissively, his cool stare never leaving Rey. “Now, come closer, child.”

With a flick of a long, yellow nailed finger, Snoke yanked her through the Force. She tried to kick her legs up, to struggle in his invisible grasp, but found her limbs as immobile as they had been on Takodana. Her toes scraped across the floor, ringing a yelp from her throat when her casted ankle caught and turned outward. 

His scarred features rearranged into a twisted sympathetic expression. “So sorry, my dear,” he intoned, and with another small movement of his wrist her body rose slightly above the ground, then over the stairs elevating the throne, until stopping inches from his gnarled face. 

Rey knew she had a choice. She willed away the cold grip of terror weakening her resolve, and instead stoked the boiling in her blood, clenching her fists, wishing they were holding her staff.

“What spunk,”he chuckled again, reaching out his spidery fingers. Rey tried to jerk her face away, but he had her hanging helplessly, and his dry, papery hand came to cup her cheek.

Simmering hatred bubbled up into a sneer across her face._ I am no trembling prey. _

“There it is. Beautiful. Feel that anger, that fear. Yes, this one will do nicely. But a challenge she will be for you, my boy, I can see.” His thumb gently stroked the skin under her eye. 

Rey swallowed and looked away. A tickling feeling, like black sand in the wind, stroked her mind. 

Stiffening and blinking at the foreign presence, she tried to push back against the dark force, as she now had so many times with Kylo Ren, but the gentle sand soon blocked out the light and turned to sparkling shards of scraping glass.

A scream ripped through her throat as her brain was assaulted with unmerciful violence, her mind whipped up into the swirling storm. Snoke smiled, eyes hard, and wormed his way deeper, tearing and ripping at her memories before flinging them away, until he settled on one to savor.

_ “That’s mine!” the scrawny boy cried as the bigger girl ran away with the paltry quarter portion of food she had wrenched out of his tiny fingers. _

_ Rey looked at her five portions, exhaustion weighing her limbs down, then back at the boy’s ribs poking through his thin shirt. Sighing, she hid her provisions away under the broken X-wing she’d been leaning against and rose to her feet, jogging through the junk yard. _

_ Brandishing her staff, Rey cut the girl’s path off. She skidded to a stop, sending sand flying. “Give the kid back his food.” _

_ A fearful shade passed over the girls face before her silver eyes turned cold again. “Then he should have run faster.” _

_ Rey caught sight of the boy’s tearful gaze peeking out from a pile of rubble, observing their standoff. _

_ “Just give it back and we can all go on our way, peacefully.” _

_ "No,” the girl said, and turned on her heel clutching the quarter portion to her chest. _

_ “He’s just a hungry kid, come on.” _

_ The girl turned, and bared her teeth bitterly. “And I’m just a hungry girl, what of it?” _

_ The boy timidly ducked away, probably in search of other food. _

_ Taking a breath Rey rushed the other girl, cracking her head with one end of her staff and sending her into the ground. _

_ "Next time pick on someone your own size,” Rey growled, “And don’t make me hurt you again.” Ducking and snatching the portion out of the dazed girl’s hand, she turned around and sprinted away to go find the boy and give him his measly food back. _

_ She smiled as she saw him bent over, picking through scrap pieces “I got you - hey those are mine!” she cried, her smile falling. “I brought you back yours!” she held his out in her hand. _

_ “And now I’ve got all of yours,” the boy snarled and took off through the wreck. That was Rey’s whole weeks worth of food that she had been saving! She took off after the boy. _

_ He was a quick one, dodging her every move. Just when she thought she had him, he slipped away and crawled through spaces even she couldn’t fit through. Giving up, she turned to trudge home with a sigh, weighing the quarter portion in her grimy hand, tears springing in her eyes at all the hungry nights she might be facing ahead of her. _

_ As she turned a corner she saw the girl she had knocked down, holding a flask of water to the lips of a silver eyed toddler on her hip. _

_ The girl turned and caught sight of Rey, her mouth set in a hard line, turning so her body was shielding her child, creeping slowly away, keeping Rey within her sights. _

_ The child had dirty snot covering its cheeks. _

_ “Here,” Rey said, offering the quarter portion. “He got my food anyway.” _

_ The woman narrowed her eyes and turned to skitter away. _

_ “No really! You can have it! Take it, for your child,” she cried after her, but the woman was already gone. _

_ Later that night, Rey’s tears mixed with the food she could barely manage to choke down. _

_ She ruined everything, even when she tried to help. She couldn’t help the sneaking feeling that maybe that’s why her parents were taking so long to come take her home. They’d come back when everything was in order, and she couldn’t mess it up. _

Rey’s body shook with tremors, her eyes unseeing.

Inhaling like he had found a particularly sweet fruit, Snoke hummed and closed his eyes until he found another memory to focus on.

_ The stormtrooper had seen her, he raised his blaster and fired a shot. She barely ducked in time and fired back immediately, but the safety was on! Quickly rectify that as she heard heavy footfalls fast approaching through the thick underbrush that covered Takodana, she shot again. Her blaster bolt pierced his armor. He fell. She stared at her hand in horror, so far from the blood her fingers had spilled. _

Rey screamed and writhed like a skitter mouse skewered on a stick as Snoke’s oily tendrils cut deeper.

Then the mental storm he stirred inside her softened brain snapped to an unnatural halt, leaving Rey whimpering in the face of her past.

_ With a battle cry she savagely squeezed his airway with the chains. The metal dug into his flesh, and as she jerked his neck back, blood began trickling down into his dirty collar. He choked and reached up, scrambling at her hands. She twisted them harder. _

Snoke leaned forward, his eyes scanning her face, before settling on her eyes. “You are no stranger to harnessing fear to your hand.”

Rey’s head flopped limply against her chest.

_ Rey glared daggers at him, wishing she had her staff and could knock that helmet off his head and beat in his face until it was nothing more than a bloody pulp of skull shards, brains, and ripped flesh. She mentally fumbled as she tried to violently shove the image at his mind with all her might. She swore she felt him flinch, even though he stayed perfectly motionless. _

“You wish to kill Kylo Ren,” he chuckled as if it were the most absurd and amusing thing he had heard. “I’d like to see you try sometime. Maybe after you begin your training. See if he is deserving of his title after having a mere scavenger girl carve him up with his own weapon.” He sent a scathing look of disgust past Rey’s shoulders.

Snoke twirled his index finger, sending Rey’s twitching body to pivot slowly in the air as he inspected her further. She could feel those same rusted wires begin to slither over her body, searching out her physical injuries, prodding at them curiously until she flinched and gasped through the tears already trailing down her ashen cheeks.

“Hmm. Yes, I believe your new apprentice is ready. Well done on her recovery. Good pacing. Her training will begin at once and she will be moved to your quarters forthwith. That is all.”

Rey’s glassy eyes barely widened before the force hold around her body suddenly evaporated and she tumbled to the icy dias like a limp corpse. Groaning she looked up at the golden slippered feet inches from her nose. Rolling to her side, she tried to rise on her shaking limbs, to crawl away down the stairs and escape.

Cold leather gripped her biceps and pulled her upright. She meant to kick her legs under her, to stand on her own, but her body wouldn’t obey her thoughts, her limbs flopping like a flag without wind to keep it aloft. 

Kylo Ren caught her before she landed, attempting to pull her to her feet. 

The world spun.

_ Silver eyes. _

_ Blood. _

_ They left me. They left me because there’s something wrong. _

One arm swung under her knees, the other around her shoulders to scoop her up against his chest.

She closed her eyes and did not see the mask glance down at her as he strode across the obsidian sea to escape the dark whisperings that would forever pollute her memories. 

The hissing breath from Kylo Ren’s mask stirred the hair on top of her head, the strands fluttering and tickling her scalp.

He crossed the throne room quickly with Rey in his long, smooth strides. The door opened before him. Rey turned and looked into the helmets of the guards outside. He shifted her weight, but his steps remained steady as he carried her through the winding hallways and deeper into the belly of the ship. 

Her ribs ached in the cradle of his arms. Trying to get comfortable, she squirmed painfully, but his hands gripped her tightly in warning every time. She settled for breathing shallow measured breaths and biting her lip, hoping he’d put her down soon, but dreading it. She had no idea what new horror was awaiting her in their final destination.

Eventually he stopped, punching in the code to a small door. He carried her through a sparsely furnished room, and bent to set her down on the single bed 

Her drained body fell onto the sheets, as lifeless as a freshly slaughtered suckling happabor. All feeling in her skin seemed sliced away, nerves stunned and withered.

Despite how her body protested she tried to sit up, but Kylo Ren put a hand on her shoulder and pressed gently but firmly into the mattress.

“Rest,” he said through the vocoder. He reached up and clicked the mechanism that released his mask and pulled it off his head, his dark tresses tousled and clinging to a slight sheen of sweat on his scarred face. 

She heard him moving about the room, doing something she couldn't find herself to care about as she stared at the ceiling, trying to shove the memories down and lock them away out of sight. When finally feeling began to come back to her limbs, she attempted to roll onto an elbow.

“I’m not sharing this bed with you, sleemo,” she spat weakly.

He glared at her, pursing his lips as he strode across the room and held out a hand to shove her back down. “You won’t be.”

“Isn’t this your room?” she asked, looking around.

“Yes,” he turned and set his helmet on a seat in a corner shrouded in shadows.

“Well if I’m not sleeping in this bed with you, then where am I sleeping?”

“On the floor,” he replied matter of factly.

“So you’ll sleep in the bed?”

“Yes.” He paused. “I’ll have a pallet brought in for you.”

Rey looked at him suspiciously. “Why?”

“Because sleeping on a hard cold floor would not be conducive to your healing ribs. Or would you prefer to sleep without any padding?” he said, reaching for a datapad on a desk and typing something in.

Snorting, Rey smirked, “And here I thought you were just being a gentleman.”

Kylo Ren dropped the data-pad and turned to survey her. “I am not a gentleman.”

“You’re not even a man.”

“No?”

“You’re a monster,” she spat.

The silence stretched. “Yes, I am.”

Rey held her breath, surprised at his ready agreement, his eyes burning like coals into her soul.

“How can you admit that and justify your actions?”

“What actions?”

Rey scoffed. “Every bad thing you’ve ever done! Kidnapping me? Everyone on Takodana?” she swallowed, and despite herself felt tears begin to spill down her cheeks. “K-killing Finn? Murdering. Y-your own father?”

She hiccuped, angrily swiping at her face waiting for an answer that didn’t come. Finally she sniffed and tried to draw herself up higher, narrowing her eyes to put heat behind her words, but her voice barely came out a whisper. “No regrets?”

The air buzzed in the quiet.

“Do you regret that girl and her child?” he asked calmly.

Rey inhaled, breath hanging in the trembling air. “How did you-”

“Or the Stormtrooper _ you _ killed? The Supreme Leader is wise and all powerful. I saw all he did. You know you’re not a benevolent saint above the rest of those in your memories, nor above me.”

“But- it may be true I’m not a saint, but-” she rubbed furiously at her eyes, then gestured emphatically,“They were shooting at me! And I didn’t know she had a child! I-I was only trying to help. It wasn’t my fault!”

“What about the slavers? Do you ever wonder if they had children starving at home that would have gotten a warm meal if they had sold you?”

Silence stretched thin around them. Rey could feel a crackling in the air around her.

“You see how pointless this argument over good and bad, right and wrong, dark and light is now? There is only power and chaos, and those too weak to control it. You have the distinct privilege to be one of those few in the Galaxy who get to choose which they will be.”

Bending low over her so his hair fell around his face, his eyes searching, voice soft and gentle in contemplation. “Who are you, Rey? Do you choose to wield power, set the Galaxy in motion? Or are you a slave to random fate, nothing but a worthless scavenger?”

The crackling sparked against Rey’s skin with painful, snapping, pin pricks. Instinctively her palms flung outwards of their own accord and his body was hurled backwards into the wall as if on an invisible string.

Rey’s eyes grew round as saucers. She looked down at her hands in disbelief, then back up at Kylo Ren, who lay in a heap, clutching his abdomen with a pained grimace.

Leaping to her feet with a raging shriek, she stumbled across the floor to his prone form. Grinding a knee into his wounded stomach, her fists pummeled his face mercilessly, one, two, three times. His head thumped against the wall with every hit. Blood flew from his lip, splattering her own face. The Force burned her hand. Rey drew back her fist. 

Kylo Ren roared, inhuman and deadly. He swatted her punch away with one hand and blasted her across the room with the other. Just before she slammed into the bed frame her body froze, her head a fingertip away from cracking against the sharp edge.

Struggling to regain his footing, he threw his cloak over his shoulder out of his way. He groaned, clutching at his hip. His pale face looked up, black eyes seared into her watering ones as he wiped the blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. 

He licked his rapidly swelling lower lip and looked at the blood on his fingertip.

He took a heavy step towards her. Rey stiffened. This was it. She didn’t want to die, but it was better than the alternative, and she would face her death with dignity, no matter what he did to her.

Taking a shuddering breath Kylo Ren pressed his lips together, and with a swirl of his cloak turned, slammed his fist on the control panel, and left the room.

The door closed, and the Force hold around Rey disappeared. She sagged against the bed frame, panting, her heart racing, staring at the empty space the dark wraith had once stood.

He was wrong. 

_ I’m just a scavenger _ , she assured herself, _ nothing but a scavenger. I survive. Until my parents come for me, then I never have to think about portions and slavers again. Right? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have come to that very favorite of tropes, awkward bedroom sharing! Let the angst begin! (and woohoo for bridal carry number 2)  
How would you rate how Kylo doing with this whole 'apprentice' thing?  
How is Rey holding up do you think?  
And what does Snoke want with Rey?  
Curious to hear your questions and comments!  
(If you want to leave me a holiday present, comments are a huge plus!)


	5. Mathités

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mathités- (Greek) pupil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been absent for so long! I swear, thank you for your patience, life has been difficult recently, but I will never abandon this fic, it is my baby. I had a very busy holiday season (40 over for Christmas), then I got sick, and of course I saw tros, and well... yeah I'm still going through all 5 stages of grief. I've had a hard time getting back into writing. But this is what fic is for, escapism from the real world when I don't want to deal with it. Thanks again to my kick ass beta, aNerdObsessed !

Kylo paced back and forth outside the door to his quarters, every once in awhile raising his arm as if to press the keypad to open it, but then letting his hand drop to his side and clenching his fist tighter. Finally, he stomped away down the corridor, past the personal quarters of the other Knights, and made his way down to the flight hanger.

Stormtroopers and other personnel skittered out of his way, or else he might have strangled some of them, or at least thrown them up against the walls. 

It wasn’t until he got to the hanger that he realized he’d left his mask behind.

He raced across the floor to his TIE Silencer and leapt into the cockpit, jamming the controls to prep the ion engines.

“This is Lord Kylo Ren to air support,” he spoke into the comm, barely containing the rage building inside him. “Preparing TIE Silencer for flight prep, do you copy?”

There was silence before the comm crackled to life.

“I don’t see a sanctioned flight plan,  _ Lord  _ Ren,” came an unmistakable clipped voice.

Kylo ground his teeth.

“I don’t need a sanctioned flight  _ General  _ Hux.”

“The Rebels have been very active recently. We can’t have you leaving the Supremacy all alone, wouldn’t want to risk losing our esteemed Jedi Killer, seeing as there are so many Jedi that still need killing.”

Kylo slammed his fist into the console. He took a deep breath, rubbing his hand over his face, focusing on the feel of the soft leather on his skin and closing his eyes before answering. “I’m not going on a military action, Hux, I-”

“Then there’s no reason for you to be in the flashy TIE. Lyssa Ren just arrived and I’m sure needs assistance in… non-military action. You better attend to your own people. I can’t have extra ships leaving willy nilly. It would interfere in the navy of the First Order.”

Kylo would have finished firing up the engines and let the rest of the crew scramble out of his way, but currently he was parked in the back, furthest from the port. He hadn’t been off the Supremacy in two weeks and Snoke’s grounding was wearing his nerves thin. But at the mention of Lyssa Ren he paused. He hadn’t even felt her land. He admonished himself for letting himself become too distracted by the little scavenger. Rey. What was he supposed to do with her if she kept fighting back with hardly any provocation?

Reaching out briefly he easily found her signature. She was still angry, laced with fear, and seemed to shiver upon his touch, though he wasn’t sure if she could distinguish who he was. Shaking his head he then searched for Lyssa, and felt her perk up in answer.

His frown deepened as he powered down the engines.

He hadn’t seen any of his Knights since weeks before Star Killer. Snoke had kept them away on his own mission while he set Kylo to finding the map to Skywalker. Kylo wasn’t privy to exactly what Lyssa and the others had been up to, but if she was here she would most likely seek him out sooner or later after reporting to their Master.

Kylo jumped back out of his ship to attend to his duties as leader of the Ren, knowing that Hux must be smirking at him from the bridge, but knowing he didn’t have an argument against the bastard this time. The first Stormtrooper to stumble out of his way was the first to be thrown into the wall with a swipe of his hand. A panic rose as pilots and officers stampeded away from the rampaging rankor as he parted the tide of humanity before him. 

“That’s enough Ren!” Hux bellowed over the comm, his voice reverberating against the walls. 

Kylo turned his head slowly upwards to see Hux’s gaunt cheeks flaming in rage through the window of the control room that jutted out above the hundreds of short range ships. His eyes hardened, expression unreadable, but dangerous nonetheless. Gloved fingers itched to raise up and constrict around the other man’s puny neck, but Snoke had made it painfully clear that Hux was not to be harmed, at least physically.

Instead, Kylo’s saber leapt into his hand, igniting with a snarl. He could feel Hux’s fear spike, but then he gathered himself. He knew Kylo couldn’t touch him. 

With deathly calm footsteps, Kylo walked out of the hangar bay. Once outside he lifted his free hand and called the heavy bay doors to slam downward, then carefully slashed through the control panel, effectively sealing the door but not severing anything that could prove deadly to those within. The whining of Hux’s precious navy clamoring to get out should give him a good headache today.

Lengthening his stride, and let his feet carry him through the vast corridors and up turbolifts to where he felt Lyssa Ren in the Force. She was wearing the hood of her cloak drawn up over her mask, leaving nothing but the reflection of the geometric grid across the face visible. The Mandalorian steel staff was strapped to her back as usual, but he knew she hid various blasters under her cloak as well. Her svelte limbs were leaning against the wall outside the throne room belying her true height which was still several inches shorter than his own, but intimidating to most . The Force sparked around her in electric waves like a black eel.

Lyssa’s masked face turned to him.

“Took you long enough,” she said, her vocoder unable to hide the self-congratulatory tone, obviously lording over him that she’d once again managed to slip aboard without him noticing. She’d always been gifted at hiding her Force signature when she wanted to.

“Don’t test me. Where have you been?”

“Where Snoke wants me. Like I assume you were supposed to be.” She stood up to her full height and cocked her hip.

Kylo’s eye twitched.

“My mission has grown decidedly more complicated.”

“Yes. I felt her. Snoke told me. A scavenger, from Jakku?”

“Indeed.”

“What was a Force sensitive doing undetected on that sandball?”

“I don’t know. Yet. As you can see, decidedly more complicated.”

“I assume she had the map?”

Kylo paused. “Yes.”

“And? When do we leave, Snoke didn’t say-”

“I will decide how to proceed!”

Lyssa shook her head, unperturbed by his outburst, and walked away. “Come.”

Kylo knew where she was headed. He followed her to a turbolift that took them one floor down to the sparring rooms. Phasma was inside with a small group of death troopers running drills.

“Leave,” Kylo growled.

Phasma’s helmet swiveled to look at him, taking in his bare faced appearance with no outward reaction through her armor, but he could feel her curiosity and surprise at seeing his face. She wasn’t in the least bit cowed, but wisely turned back to her team. “Lunch break. That’s all for today. Be sure to run the simulation we practiced with the cadets after lunch.”

The Deathtroopers didn’t have to be told twice and, with a clanking of armor and weapons, hurriedly marched out of the vast hall.

Lyssa reached for the staff on her back and began to twirl it in a ‘thread the needle’ pattern, then threw it in the air, adding a pass behind her back while keeping the same easy flow.

“I smell blood,” she said under her breath.

“Mmhm,” Kylo intoned wordlessly and unhooked his saber from his belt without igniting it, deep in thought as he passed it from hand to hand.

“Scavenger’s a feisty one is she?”

When Kylo didn’t answer, Lyssa tried a different question. “Are you going to find her master?”

Kylo growled bitterly, “I am her master.””

“I wasn’t looking for Skywalker. If I recall that was your job, before you got stuck babysitting or whatever it is you’re doing now.”

His nostrils flared, “I’m sure I’ll find out what you were doing soon enough.”

“Can I meet her?” Lyssa asked with a particularly vicious swing of her staff.

Kylo’s frowned deepened, his mouth twitching subtly. “Rey? She might like you too much.”

“Oh, why do you say that?”

“You have certain, similar proclivities. But not today. How long are you staying?”

“I’m awaiting for Malak Ren to return. The Supreme Leader said to wait for him before he gives us our next instructions.”

“Hmm.” Kylo didn’t like it when Snoke separated him from his Knights. They were his, after all. He had earned them, fought for the right to lead them, killed for them. After a pause he answered her, “Well, perhaps in a day or two. She’s quite feral.”

“So am I.” Lyssa said, pointing her staff at Kylo’s throat.

“That’s why I want you to meet.”

**-~-**

Rey stayed on the ground right where he’d left her at the foot of the bed, breathing shallow and staring at the door he’d just disappeared through. Why had he left? Why hadn’t he finished her off? Why had he just...walked away.

She could hear his footsteps pacing outside, could feel his burning presence swirling like a sandstorm. Then it traveled away. All she could hear was her breath and the hum of the ship.

When she didn’t feel him return she pushed up to her feet, grimacing as her injured body protested. Leaning on the bed she looked around her at the spare room. Besides the bed covered in tightly tucked black blankets and sheets, there wasn’t much to it. She had certainly never made her bed up so the covers laid so flat, usually just leaving her ratty blankets in a pile to curl up into when she got home after a hard day in the wrecks.

There was a tall chest of drawers in on corner near the head of the bed.

Padding quietly across the bedroom she peered curiously into the second room. It had a black leather chair in a corner suffused in shadow. Rey tip toed back there and gasped curiously. She bent down to look closer at the small dias, upon which lay a strange burnt and twisted object that rested on a pile of ashes. Her fingertips ran over it as delicate as feathered wings. They came away covered in grit. She rubbed the black powder between the pads of her fingers then brought them to her nose. The smell of acrid chemicals, melted plasteel, and charred wiring made her wrinkle her face in disgust. Tilting her head she supposed it must be a mask like the one Kylo Ren wore, though different in shape. This one had a grill where the mouth and nose should be and a helm that stuck out over the eyes, restricting the view further. 

Was this an old helm of Kylo Ren’s? But no this looked familiar somehow. She wracked her mind. Then sat back in horror on her heels. She couldn’t be sure, but she’d seen some old holovids. This was the mask of Darth Vader.

“Get away from that.”

Rey leapt up and whirled around, heart beating as fast as a birds against the cage of her broken ribs.

She hadn’t even heard him come back. He’d materialized like a black ghost.

Rey didn’t know what to do, what he wanted, or what he would do now that she had attacked him and he had returned to find her touching the helm of Darth Vader. 

He was silent as he walked around the bed and she skittered out of the way to the opposite side of the room as he looked down to inspect his fearsome relic.

Rey swallowed. “Is, is that the helmet of-”

“Yes.”

They stared at one another for a moment before he continued. 

“My grandfather,” he gestured to the dias.

“Oh,” Rey licked her lips, not sure how to respond to that. Then a sudden horrible thought occurred to her. “Han wasn’t his son, w-was he?”

Kylo Ren’s expression darkened, then his lip trembled as if he would reply, but he stayed silent, considering as a divet creased his brow. After several minutes he seemed to come to a decision. “No.” More silence. Then, “My mother, Leia Organa, is his daughter. And she had a twin.” He looked at her expectantly.

“Leia Organa? Wasn’t she some kind of princess or something?”

He looked down, deliberating how to reply. “Yes, she was,” he admitted.

“And, she had a kid with Han Solo, the smuggler?” Rey said in disbelief.

He gestured to himself. “Apparently.”

“I didn’t know she had a twin.” Rey frowned, trying to remember if she’d heard of this Princess Leia Organa having a twin, but she came up blank.

He paused before replying. “He was strong in the Force, like his father.”

Rey shuddered, imagining another Darth Vader prowling the galaxy, commiting genocide and slaughtering anyone who got in his way. The horror she’d seen on the holovids still made her shudder.

“You know his name. In fact you’ve been protecting him.”

Rey scoffed. “I would never protect someone like-”

“His name is Luke Skywalker.”

Rey froze.

Kylo’s eyes studied her face inscrutable, eyes dancing across her shifting expressions, watching the horror crash over her at the revelation. “That was exactly the reaction the rest of the Galaxy had when they found out,” he breathed.

“Oh,” was all Rey could manage, her throat suddenly dry.

“Now how do you feel about protecting that map?” he challenged.

Rey swallowed and looked away for a second before squaring her shoulders and standing up a but straighter. “Luke Skywalker didn’t try to kill me, or the rest of the Galaxy. He saved it from Darth Vader.”

Kylo Ren shook his head. “He may not have tried to kill you, but that’s because he never met you.”

“Well what reason would he have to kill me if he met me?” she demanded. 

“He tried to kill me,” he stated matter of factly.

Rey balled up her fists and spat, “Well that’s because you deserve it for-”

“For what?”

Silence pulsed between them.

Try though she might, tears rose in her eyes, but she managed to keep them in check. “For killing your own father.”

“I hadn’t done that yet.” He shook his head, long raven hair whispering against his shoulders. “I had never killed anyone.”

“Then why would Luke Skywalker try to kill you?”

“Because he sensed my power, as he would yours.”

Rey looked away and took a deep breath. “I’m sure he had a good reason for trying to kill you. You said it yourself; you’re a - a-” but for some reason she couldn’t finish.

“A what?” he tilted his head and leaned against the wall.

Rey bent her head and whispered, “A monster.” She flinched, waiting for his rebuttal or attack.

There was only silence in reply. Rey studied the durasteel flooring, watched her cold toes grip and relax over its icy surface. After what felt like an eternity she dared to glance up and saw him studying her again, like an unknown insect captured in a bottle.

“I have someone for you to meet,” he said.

Rey took a step back and narrowed her eyes sceptically. “Who?” 

“Can you feel them?”

That caught Rey off guard. “What?”

“Reach out into the Force, find their Force signature.”

“I can’t do that. I don’t even know who ‘they’ are,” she sniffled, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

Kylo Ren looked at her sleeve, then said,“Close your eyes.”

“No!” she growled, not willing to leave herself that vulnerable with him in the room.

“Close. Your. Eyes,” he commanded, his voice growing darker.

Rey planted her feet and lifted her chin in obstinate defiance. 

He glared, striding purposefully towards her. Rey’s eyes grew wide in fear and she stumbled backwards trying to get away, but he boxed her into the corner with his body. He towered over her, the top of her head barely coming to his shoulders. She had to crane her neck to look into his eyes, smoldering and dangerous. The expanse of his chest rose and fell. His scent invaded her space; leather, soap, and a light sheen of sweat...human. With a faint trace of ashes.

She inhaled and stood up to her full height, leaning her weight on her toes to give herself a slight boost.

“I’m not afraid of you.” She said through gritted teeth.

“Yes you are.” 

“No, I’m not.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t lie. Do whatever you want, but don’t lie.” Rey squirmed as she felt rusted metal barbs sting up against her signature. “I’ll always know. I can feel your heart beating through the Force. Your signature is all over the place.”

Rey bit her lower lip. “Well, you’re-” She tried to retaliate in kind, to control this  _ thing  _ inside her, . 

The Force lashed out wildly from her. Both she and Kylo Ren winced as she tried to reign it in, to focus it on his body standing in front of her. Instead she ended up pushing him backwards. He adjusted his stance to push back and keep his balance, but he didn’t stop her, didn’t strike back. Just watched her with those bottomless dark eyes. 

She screwed up her face and tried once more, this time barely pushing the Force out beyond herself. Her face grew red as she held her breath and scrunched up her nose. After a few more trembling attempts that either shot by him completely and ended up bringing her back impressions of things she didn’t know how to describe from who knows where, she finally brushed up against his signature. She scrambled to hold onto contact, claws digging in. Kylo Ren barely flinched. He pulsed crimson and black in the Force, like hot veins beating amongst swirling ash, the heat enough to forge Mandalorian steel, though there were cracks of ice riddling the undulating miasma that was the space occupied by Kylo Ren in the Force. 

Her eyes widened, shuddering at the alien sensation she couldn’t begin to interpret, but in her surprise she lost her control, her own awareness snapping back like a spring. She almost fell back against the wall, but he caught her by the shoulders.

Kylo’s frown deepened into some fleeting emotion Rey didn’t know how to decrypt, but it was gone as soon as it came. She pushed him off her.

He let her go and took a step back. “You just did it.”

“Did what?” Rey growled ducking around him, keeping him in her sights as she backed up to the opposite side of the room with the bed as a barrier firmly between them.

“You reached out and felt a force signature. Just like I told you too. Just like you said you wouldn’t.” His lips twitched though the rest of his face stayed fixed in his usual stoicism.

Her mouth gaped. “I-I-” She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms, clenching her fists. 

_ Kriff. The smug sleemo, _ Rey thought belatedly. She’d have to be more careful next time not to let him manipulate her into doing anything like that again.

“Now, can you find who I’m going to have you meet?”

Rey was about to protest when he said, “If you can’t find them I’ll have them come in unannounced, randomly. You won’t get fed until after they decide to come. Which might not be until tomorrow. If you find them you get to choose when you meet them, and therefore when you eat.”

Rey’s stomach gurgled at the mention of food. Despite having a regular feeding schedule, the broth he’d been giving her wasn’t exactly filling and she still always felt hunger gnawing deep within, making her constantly lightheaded.

“Fine. But I want solid food.” 

He deliberated a second. “Pureed soup. No solids yet. Your body still isn’t used to such nutrient rich food, especially now that we’ll be stopping IV’s.”

Rey narrowed her eyes at him. “I think you’re trying to keep me weak. You’re scared if you feed me properly you won’t be able to control me. That this time I’ll beat you.” It was true that she tired easily. In fact her legs were shaking from standing up for so long today, longer than she’d been allowed to in the med-bay. Not to mention the beating she’d taken from Snoke. She could still feel the ache in her body from whatever he’d done to her.

Kylo Ren narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you want to go back to broth?”

“No, no, soup is better.”

“Good, now, close your eyes-”

“And I want to feed myself with my own spoon!” She demanded. “I’m tired of you feeding me like a baby!”

“Don’t push it or we’re back to broth.”

“I won’t work for broth,” she growled.

He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “Fine! Soup and your own spoon, but only if you follow my directions and act civil. No more of this pointless willfulness.”

Rey glared, narrowing her eyes. Not kriffing likely, but she’d pretend to acquiesce for the time being. “Deal,” she nodded.

“Close your eyes. Don’t even think of arguing, or you lose the privilege of feeding yourself.”

Rey harrumphed and closed her eyes. Her legs were shaking harder now, and she was forced to put a hand on the wall to steady herself.

“Why don’t you sit down before you fall down,” Kylo Ren ordered.

Rey’s eyes flashed open, but before she managed to say anything he had tossed her the one single pillow from his bed. She barely caught it.

“To sit on,” he gestured to the floor.

“Um, ok,” she muttered, shocked at this small kindness. It probably wasn’t a kindness. She wasn’t sure why he had done it. “Thanks,” she said as an afterthought, looking up at him curiously.

He paused and looked at her before mildly replying, “You’re welcome,” and sitting himself on the bed cross legged.

Rey mirrored him, sitting on the pillow with her back against the wall. Closing her eyes, she suddenly felt the exhaustion of the events of the day falling heavy on her shoulders. She tried not to think about Snoke’s fingers in her mind, the agony he rung from her body that she could still feel in the way her joints protested with every movement, or the things he’d forced her to see.

Shuddering, she pushed the memory aside as Kylo began to instruct her.

“Now, the first step is to get a layout of all that is around you before you can find who ever you are looking for, especially in a ship this large with so many people.”

“How big is it?” she hedged, hoping to gain any tidbit of information that may aid in her escape.

“Big. No more questions,” he snapped. He took a deep breath then continued. “Feel the physical sensations around you first. The pillow underneath you, your clothes on your skin, your hair on your shoulders, the air.”

Rey inhaled, trying to feel all the things he listed. She noticed how much her hair was tickling her neck, and reached up to swipe it back from her shoulders. The tunic was soft, but overly large on her, the sleeves too long. She fiddled with the hem. Usually she managed to ignore it, but she was now aware of the ache in her ankle and ribs that she usually tried to block out of her mind.

Shivering in the cool air, she once again cursed whoever kept the temperatures so low. Her feet were almost numb from cold. She’d grown up in the desert and had experienced extremes in hot and cold in a single day before in the winters, but this constant mild chill felt like it was slowly freezing her muscles solid with every passing day.

“And now, I want you to try and feel your own Force signature, and describe it to me,” he said, his voice the calmest she’d ever heard it, instead of the coolness that seemed to bely a barely contained manic rage.

Rey tried to shift her awareness deeper than just the physical, to that part of herself she usually retreated from. It awoke at her attention, like a snake rearing up. It was almost too much to control, making her hiss through her teeth as she tried to reign it in.

“Don’t control it, just, feel. Breath.” He inhaled.

Rey took in a breath as well and tried to do as he said. She found that she could somehow look at it, like trying to see something that was behind you. You knew it was there, but it was only clear in a memory. Occasionally when she stared too hard it reacted as if she accidentally poked it, stirring up little eddies, some more explosive than others. She wasn’t sure how to describe it, but she seemed to sense a light like lapis lazuli glowing around her, interspersed with speckles of golden sand and drops of water, wafting a feeling like the scent of sun on baking rocks. It felt foreign, and yet familiar, like she’d always known it was there, but had been blocking it out, like the pain in her ankle.

Rey jerked away from a gentle caress up against the blue light. Swirling red and ash danced just beside her; Kylo, reaching out. She tried retreating back, pulling her signature into herself, but the energy instead bled through her control like flame through her fingers, sparking against his foreign presence. His signature flowed away, just out of reach as Rey fumbled to regain control of herself.

“Easy,” Kylo said above her. 

“I’m. Trying,” she grunted, screwing up her face, eyes squeezed tight.

“Let go. Observe, do not attempt to control yet. Keep breathing, big slow breathes.”

Rey grumbled and let go all at once, letting the Force snap and spark into place around her, wincing as her signature settled, and sighed in relief when it was comfortably enveloping her once more.

“See, you don’t have to do anything to be active,” he said softly.

That didn’t make any sense to Rey, but she took a few deep breaths to humor him as she let the sensations was over her. It was surprisingly calming now, to forget the world and just let the warmth of the golden rivelets flow and undulate amongst the pulsing cerulean. 

She nearly jumped out of her trance when Kylo spoke again.

“Now, reach out. Can you feel me?”

Rey tried pushing outwards, holding her breath as she met resistance.

“No, no. Don’t make contact.”

Rey huffed and tried again, this time without pushing through her own signature. But everytime she attempted to, her signature would inevitably bubble out after she got to a certain point and shoot out like an errant blaster bolt, sometimes flying across the room or bouncing off the ceiling, or pierce straight through Kylo, which was very unpleasant and made both of them flinch.

Rey was close to tears when she finally managed to do as she’d done before and gently make contact, but that wasn’t what he’d asked for and he berated her each time, asking her to try again and again. 

“Enough,” he announced. 

Rey opened her eyes blinking at the bright light overhead, still managing to glare as he stretched his stiff legs. He shook his head, long dark mane swing around his shoulders as he slid off the bed. “We’ve been at this for at least an hour, and you’re not getting any closer. We’ll try later.”

Rey’s stomach growled. “Can I have lunch?”

“Did you find the person I wanted you to find?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, no, but-”

“Then no, you don’t get lunch.”

“You’re asking too much of me before I even have the basics down!”

“This is the basics. I also said you’d get soup and a spoon, but since you didn’t complete the simple task I set you to, you’re not getting those either,” he lifted his long arms above his head and twisted slightly from side to side.

Rey thought about arguing her point further, but she was too tired and hungry, and instead slouched against the wall, carefully straightened her knees, sprawled out in exhaustion. “Well then am I meeting this person now, or what?”

Kylo didn’t answer, instead looking past her, eyes glazing over.

She shivered as she felt the Force seem to crackle around him, shooting out across the ship. After concentrating on their signatures for so long she felt hyper aware, like every nerve ending was raw and sore.

Kylo opened his eyes. “She’ll come by when she finishes her other duties. I’m hungry. We might as well eat first.” 

_ Finally he sees reason, _ Rey thought, then spoke aloud, “I’m not eating broth and I’m not letting you feed me ever again!” 

“Fine, then don’t eat.” He typed something into his comm-link.

Rey’s scowl deepened.  _ You’ll have to let me eat sometime,  _ she thought savagely. 

She could win this battle of wills.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not joking, I'm watching the Star Wars Holiday Special as I post, and when I did a last minute edit beforehand. This is an hour and half of my life I will never get back, and it's the best and worst thing I've ever wasted my life on. 
> 
> My friend came over the watch the last Mandalorian episode because they hadn't seen it yet, and when it ended they turned the Holiday Special On. They say they had to show it to me so I stay true to the source material.
> 
> I had no choice. If the chapter sucks, this is why.
> 
> (Also omg over 1k hits?!?! I did not in my wildest dreams think that many ppl would ever read anything I wrote. Thank you everyone! You all are aces and I love all you beautiful people! Please tell me what you think thus far, and any theories you have for these space nerds!)


	6. Ekhidna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ekhidna- often called a she-dragon, she-viper, or eel; the Mother of Monsters. She was a monster of Greek mythology that lived in a sea cave, and was sometimes called the Eel of Tartarus (Tartarus is a realm within Hades and acts as the prison that holds the Titans). She was the consort of Typhoeus and mother of many famous monsters such as Cerberus, the Chimera, Hydra, the Sphinx, the Caucasian Eagle (who ate Prometheus' liver) and many more. The Australian egg laying mammal (Echidna) is named after her.

A droid brought their lunch to the room. Kylo sat at the table in the room that contained the terrible visage of Darth Vader. Rey sat just outside of the entryway, not wanting to get any closer to the mask, but unable to resist the smell of the food that was stacked high on his plate. There were real vegetables, bright and colorful, and a synthetic meat in a brown sauce that smelled unlike anything she’d ever encountered before. It looked divine.

Her mouth watered as she watched him pick up a fork, her eyes following as he skewered some kind of round, green vegetable before bringing it to his lips.

“Why don’t I get to eat what you’re eating?” she asked jealously sniffing the heady aroma wafting across the room to where she sat huddled on her pillow leaning against the wall.

He swallowed and delicately dabbed at his mouth with a napkin before answering, “Because you’re not ready to eat much solid food yet, let alone non-synthetic.”

She watched him eat every bite as he ignored her. She wiped her nose with her sleeve and turned to stare at the burnt mask hiding in the shadows.

How could Luke Skywalker, the Jedi and hero of legend that saved the Galaxy from the Empire, be the son of Darth Vader? It just, didn’t make sense. How could someone so good come from someone so evil? 

_ Well _ , she thought,  _ I guess it’s just like how someone as evil as Kylo Ren can come from someone as decent as Han Solo. _

Her lip quivered, eyes burning as tears threatened to spill over. She couldn’t think about Han, couldn’t risk crying in front of his son.

Son. The word still felt strange to even contemplate; how could a creature like Kylo Ren be anyone’s son? Not to mention, the son of the Rebel heroine, Princess Leia Organa. Rey had seen holo-projections of her garbed in a flowing white dress with her hair braided and twisted on top of her regal head in an elegant geometric pattern, reminiscent of a crown.

That was the other strange thing. Royalty. Did that make Kylo Ren some sort of prince? Rey smirked, never in a million years would she have dreamt she, a scavenger, would ever be in the presence of royalty. Well, she’d spent a day with Han. Did he count as royalty too since he was married to a princess? 

As she mused about the strange turn of events in her life, Kylo Ren finished his meal. 

Cleaning his mouth and fingers carefully with the napkin, he looked down at her and asked, “Do you want your lunch now?”

Rey scowled up at him with her head on her knees. She was about to refuse, but she figured broth was better than nothing, even if it wouldn’t completely fill the hollow in her belly. It wasn’t a foreign feeling, and she knew she was getting close to the unbearable point, where she felt almost numb and her bones felt like they were starting to ache. 

She held out her hand for the steaming bowl that sat on a tray beside Kylo’s food with a resigned sigh.

He turned, picked it up and crossed the room to her. Rey reached for her meal, but he pulled it out of her reach with a frown and instead scooped up some broth in the spoon, the bowl held underneath to catch any drips, the spoon hovering in front of her lips.

“No. I’m not doing that. I said I wouldn’t let you feed me and I meant it,” Rey growled, eyes spitting fire.

Kylo didn’t say anything at first, just moved the spoon closer until it bumped against her mouth, spreading its salty tangy taste. Rey turned her face away, but resolutely kept eye contact. 

Kylo sighed and put the spoon in his own mouth. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

Rey snorted. “See? Not so good, is it? Maybe now you’ll rethink your decision about giving me actual food?”

“My master didn’t offer me the choice to eat when I first began my studies. Be thankful I’m being so considerate,” he said softly, a slight bite to his words, and sipped another spoonful.

His revelation gave Rey pause. He’d been starved too? 

He was still a monster though, starved or no. And she definitely wasn’t going to let him feed her.

He finished the bowl of broth while crouched in front of her. She knew he wanted her to watch, to tempt her to take the spoonfuls he periodically held out to her. But she wouldn’t be intimidated by the likes of him. 

_ I can win this battle of wills _ , she repeated to herself to keep her resolve, despite the increasing gnawing in her stomach as she watched him scoop up the last of the broth.

He stood up, grunting and favoring his injured hip. She wondered why he hadn’t used bacta to heal himself. She was sure the First Order could afford it to keep their soldiers in fighting form. Of course they hadn’t used it on her, but that was to be expected. She was just a prisoner of war.

_ Huh. Me, a prisoner of war. _ Again, she never thought she’d ever be that important. 

A droid came and collected the dishes. Rey looked longingly at the door as it opened and closed, leaning forward slightly on the pillow she still huddled on. Freedom was so close, just a few steps across the room. However, there was no doubt that Kylo would catch her before she even reached the threshold, and even if she did, how was she going to open it?

He typed in a short code to lock the door, and even though she knew she could rewire it, there definitely wasn’t enough time for that.

Kylo closed his eyes after the droid left and Rey’s over sensitive nerves felt him searching for something outside the room. 

He opened his eyes a moment later. “Lyssa Ren will be here shortly.”

Rey wrinkled her brow. “Ren? Is she family of yours?”

Kylo shook his head. “No, no. Thankfully not. She’s one of my Knights of Ren.”

“Oh.” Rey didn’t know what else to say so she crossed her arms over her knees and rested her chin back on them. 

Kylo glanced at her, then sat back on his bed. Silence rang through the chilled air as Rey tapped her fingers idly.

Abruptly, Kylo stood up and went to punch in the code to open the door. 

“Took you long enough,” he griped at whoever was outside. Rey tried to peer around his broad back to see who or what he was talking to, but all she caught sight of was a pair of black boots.

“I was writing a mission report for my captain,” a distorted feminine voice purred. “I’m sure you understand how thorough he wants these reports to be.”

“So you’re actually going to tell me what you were up to. I thought that was just for Snoke to know?” he said, barely concealing his annoyance.

“It was mostly for Snoke. But you get to hear all about the damage on my ship.”

“What did you do?” 

“I guess you’ll just have to read my report.”

Kylo tensed, but stepped back and gestured irately inside. A lithe feminine form of a dark wraith entered. Everything from her skin tight black pants to her cloak flowing behind her, her tunic, and mask was a deep inky black. The way she moved seemed as if the light couldn’t touch her, like it was almost repelled by her movements. It sent a chill down Rey’s spine.

Her mask immediately whipped around and found Rey in the corner. 

Rey hurriedly stood up to her full height and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well, well,” the woman said. “What do you have here, Kylo?” she took slithering steps across the room to stand before Rey, like she was backing her prey further into the wall as she looked it up and down appraisingly. “Scrawny little thing.”

Rey jutted her chin out, wishing more than ever for the comforting grip of her staff so she could take this ghost on and make her bleed like any other mortal.

“Mmm, good. That means your enemies underestimate you. Bet you already know that though, don’t you little scavenger?” She reached out long, thin gloved fingers to lightly stroke Rey’s cheek. 

Rey tried not to flinch, but couldn’t help a little shiver as she glared up into the mask’s emotionless visor.  Her reflection was fractured and exaggerated in the grid patterning over the face of the mask, and the paleness of her skin, along with her messy hair hanging limp past her shoulders was shocking. There were dark circles under her eyes but despite all this, she could still see the fire in her own eyes. If she could stand her ground against Kylo Ren, this woman couldn’t possibly be any worse.

“Careful with this one,” Lyssa Ren said, gently turning Rey’s chin back and forth with a gentle push from her finger, as if she were sizing up a happabor at market. “She’s got you out for blood. But you have experienced her ferocity already, haven’t you, when she carved up your face like a bird for roasting?” She let go of Rey and turned. 

Rey jolted at the sight of Kylo’s impressive height blocking out the light. She’d been so focused on Lyssa that she hadn’t even heard him approach.

Lyssa reached up and drew her hand down Kylo’s scar. He grabbed her wrist and glared at her.

The woman chuckled and relaxed her hand until he dropped it. 

“You know,” she all but whispered to him, “I remember every person who ever scarred my body.” After a beat, she turned and leaned into Rey’s space, her breath cold as it caressed her ear. “And most of them are dead. Don’t forget that, scavenger.”

Suddenly Rey felt the presence of Kylo’s Force signature gently bumping up against the edge of her own. She wasn’t sure what it meant as she shifted her feet nervously, but it felt considerably less malicious than the mysterious Lyssa Ren. Rey could barely make her out now that she tried to find it. Her Force signature was impregnable, only a faint reticent gray impression, ephemeral as smoke. 

“Ah, I see lessons have already begun.” Lyssa stepped away from Rey, walking backwards until Kylo was compelled to move. “Starting with those Jedi meditations?”

“They aren’t Jedi meditations, it’s basic Force awareness. And what I choose to teach my apprentice is none of your concern.”

“Of course it isn’t. Only our Master’s concern. I’m sure he is pleased by the...  _ direction _ your training is going.”

“Lyssa,” he growled.

She cocked her hip, ignoring him and turned back to Rey. “I hear you favor the staff.”

Rey swallowed. “Um, yes-”

“Good. We can spar sometime when you get tired of his silent monk treatment. Anyway, I’ve got an appointment with the fresher. It was nice meeting you, scavenger.” She turned and sauntered to the door. “Care to let me out?” she said to Kylo, a grimace on his face.

He shook his head and walked over to oblige her. “I knew it was a mistake to invite you.”

“Oh please, you knew that before I even asked. I was surprised you said yes at all.”

“Me too,” he replied as he punched in the code to the door.

Lyssa Ren chuckled, her sounds of mirth disconcerting through the vocador as her long legs carried her briskly out into the corridor, her cloak swishing behind her.

Kylo called after her in a surly tone, “Will I see you tomorrow, or are you being sent on another mission by the Supreme Leader?” 

Lyssa’s bootfalls stopped. “I don’t know. Not sure what he wants me to do next. I may be ship bound for some time, or I might be gone in a few hours. I guess we’ll see. Read my report, I hope you enjoy it.”

“I’m sure I will.” He closed the door without any preamble, his shoulders visibly relaxing as soon as she was out of sight. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair.

Rey cleared her throat. “So. That was one of the Knights of Ren. She’s-”

“A handful,” he said taking a large breath and letting it out slowly.

“Um. Yes.”

“Don’t worry. Not all the Knights are like that. Most I won’t let you meet.”

“Why?”

“They aren’t as easily charmed.” He walked back over to where Rey stood.

“Charmed?” she said, taking a step backwards before she reminded herself she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her, but it was almost necessary to make eye contact, he was just so kriffing _ tall _ .

“She liked you.”

“Could have fooled me. All that talk of killing everyone who scarred her.”

“She was warning you. She doesn’t trust me.”

“Trust you?”

“Not to go too far.”

Rey swallowed.

“Rey, I’m not going to punish you. For this,” he gestured at his gruesome injury. It was healing about as well as could be expected, the swelling had gone down and the raw meat had faded to pink. The synth skin had been removed and only a thin indented crevasse remained in his ghostly pale skin.

He stepped closer. She could smell his warm, ashy scent.

“The past doesn’t matter anymore. As long as you don’t try anything like attacking anyone with a lightsaber again, your training won’t include any unnecessary pain.”

Rey took a shaking breath. “That’s comforting,” she said with trepidation, trying to be sarcastic, but was unable to keep her voice from trembling slightly.

A divet deepened between Kylo’s brows. “No. I suppose it’s not. But iron isn’t forged without being plunged into flames or beaten against the anvil.”

Rey got the feeling he was repeating a line he’d heard spoken to him many times before.

Looking askance at his wounded face and haunted eyes she said, “I have already been scorched by the sands of Jakku. There is no furnace hot enough to make me bend.”

His lips twitched. “We’ll see.”

**-~-**

That night Kylo felt even more exhausted than usual. He’d barely been doing anything the last two weeks besides paperwork and taking care of Rey for the short amount of time she was conscious everyday. Of course, it would have been easier if he’d chosen to throw her in a bacta tank from the very beginning, but that would defeat the purpose of her training. Even so he was allowing her small reprieves and favors to aid in her healing. As it was, his frenetic energy was boiling under the skin, on the verge of falling into a neurotic fugue without any sort of outlet for his restless mind and body. 

Sleep had been scarce. But this evening he could barely keep his eyes open when he finally put his data-pad down after reading some military reports, including Lyssa’s.

It had been interesting, as she’d promised. Lyssa couldn’t tell him exactly what she’d been up to, but ever self serving in her delight with manipulating people, she had found a way to give him an inkling through clues hidden in her wording and phrasing, harkening back to past conversations and experiences they had shared.

It seemed she herself had also been after some sort of object based on the fact she described specifically, in mind numbing detail, what was in her hull, which was about the same at both the beginning and end of her trip. Just basic survival necessities, nothing new or of particular value, but she did go out of her way to specify that it weighed less than at outset. 

So she hadn’t been gone long, and she hadn’t picked up anything new. She also hadn’t come into contact with any sentients or killed any thankfully, this time. She often left a mess that caused political upheaval, which Kylo luckily didn’t have to personally deal with. That was outside of the Knights’ prerogative. But Hux would never let him forget it, complaining so loudly and often that it was as if Kylo was the one dealing with all the foreign dignitaries and tightening security. 

Rey sat curled up on the pillow he’d given her, leaning up against the embrace of the corner walls with a somnolent pout screwing up her face as he read. She appeared to be fighting against ever increasing lassitude, her chin falling to her chest, eyelashes fluttering closed, before jerking her head and rapidly blinking, sometimes rubbing her eyes or pinching her arms.

Standing up from his chair, he reached his arms up above his head to stretch. He cracked his neck and Rey jerked awake, her wide eyes jumping to his as she wiped her tangled hair off her face.

“Time for dinner, then bed,” he said, and pressed at the power icon at the bottom of his data-pad. It beeped softly to signal its sleep mode as he turned and began to type into his comm. “I’m having a pallet brought up for you.”

Rey snorted. “Yeah, like you care.”

Kylo just shook his head and strode over to his dresser. “I know how hard it is to sleep on a hard floor with cracked ribs.”

He didn’t have the energy to argue in circles with her on every miniscule detail, and he was growing impatient with the tedious rate of her recovery. 

Opening his drawers he withdrew a freshly pressed buttoned pyjama top and matching pants, then turned and placed them on top of the chest of drawers so he could begin disrobing, starting by unbuckling the belt around his waist so he could take off his tunic.

He had his undershirt halfway off when he heard Rey clearing her throat. He finished pulling it off and turned around bare chested with his top held in his left hand hanging by his side. 

“I’m still here you know. Can I leave, or could you go to the fresher, or…” she said, looking everywhere but at him, her cheeks turning red.

“No. Just close your eyes if you want, I don’t care.”

“Well I care about not seeing you, n-naked.”

“Like I said, close your eyes.” He rubbed his own tired eyes and turned to put his tunic on the top of the drawers. 

He unbuckled the suspenders and dropped his pants and underwear all in one, stepped out of them languorously, and stood completely and unapologetically bare, then swiped his pyjama pants off the dresser, and turned around fully before sliding a leg inside. Rey had her eyes squeezed shut, her face screwed up tightly, face and neck flushed so hot she must have given herself a fever.

Just as he pulled his sleep pants up his comm buzzed, announcing the arrival of the droid with Rey’s things. He strode barefoot to the door and punched in the code, the air from the swish of the door cool on the skin of his chest. The door slid open to reveal a silver protocol droid with a hovering container behind it. He stepped out of the way and ushered it inside with its container following. 

“Lord Ren, I have the pallet and sleep clothes that you ordered, as well as the food. Where would you like me to put them?” 

“The pallet can go beside my bed, food on the table through there,” he pointed to indicate where he wanted them. He swiped the neatly folded clothing off the top as the droid set to its task.

Rey was looking at him warily.

“Here, you can change into these,” Kylo said proffering the pile of cloth to her but she stuck her nose up at it.

“I can sleep in these just fine, thanks,” she said with a resolute jutting of her chin, and crossed her arms firmly.

He was too tired to argue. “Put them on and go to sleep.”

“No!” she exclaimed, then pointed to the doorway, “Not unless you leave while I change.”

“You haven’t earned that right, yet. Put. Them. On.” What could he do to make her obey? She never took well to orders. Something had to change. 

He threw the clothes at her. She barely managed to catch them as they sailed towards her face.

“No.” She tossed the offending clothing to the side and crossed her arms. “You can’t make me!”

“I can rip your clothes off you and leave you naked to decide whether you’d like to wear your pajamas or not.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Care to find out?”

She stood her ground, standing taller to try to look more threatening. He took a step forward, watching her eyes widen.

“Fine! Fine, I’ll do it!” she spat in his face. “You don’t have to prove you’re any more of a monster by assaulting me!”

Kylo’s hands balled into fists. “I wasn’t going to-”

“Oh. So you were only going to assault me a little bit?” A few drops of her spittle landed on his bare chest making him flinch.

“No, I wouldn’t-”

“Tearing someone’s clothes off is assault! Now leave the karking room while I get changed!” Rey stomped her foot, breathing hard, and took a step forward. “Go!”

Kylo didn’t budge, let her get into his space until she got unnerved by the intimacy and slipped out of her corner around him, carefully leaning away so she didn’t risk touching him.

He sighed, keeping his back turned, shoulders tensing, staring into the corner. 

“You can use the fresher. It’s the door to the left in the other room,” he said stiffly, leaning his head against the wall, balling his fists, cutting his nails into his palms, trying not to remember or think. He should be beyond this, strong enough to withstand his own training. 

_ Tearing cloth. _

_ “You're just a child in a mask.” _

_ Drops of crimson mixing with salty pearls on onyx floor. _

_ Flashing lights. _

“E chu ta!”

Kylo’s eyes flashed back open into the present as he whipped his head around.

Rey was standing in front of the door, sucking on her thumb and cursing so fast in a mixture of Huttese and some other language he barely caught a word. 

“What did you do now?” he strode over.

Rey skittered away across the room, dropping her thumb from her mouth. He took a step closer.

“Kriff!” he hopped away and looked down. A bloody screw rolled away from where he’d stepped on it with his bare foot.

He bent and picked it up. “What is this?” he asked, his mouth pressed in a thin line, nostrils flaring.

Rey didn’t reply, just stood blinking at him. A drop of blood fell onto the floor from her fist.

“Let me see,” he held out his hand.

She didn’t move.

“Do you want to get an infection? I guarantee it would make your fruitless escape attempts more difficult.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m just fine.”

Another crimson droplet gathered on her skin and fell to the floor.

“Whether you’re fine or not, you’re staining my floor. If I hand you antibacterial gel and a bandage will you wrap up your wound?”

“Isn’t that a bit archaic? Bandages and antibacterial gel? Why can’t you give me regular bacta?”

Kylo looked away. “It is. And no, I can’t give you bacta.”

She snorted. “Having fun torturing me yet again.”

“I’m not torturing you. I’m training you.”

Rolling her eyes she leaned up against a wall. “Yep. I’m learning oh so much from using out of date medicine. It’ll come in real handy when I’m out watching you slaughter innocent people. I can put the antibacterial on their severed heads afterwards.”

“Stop!” he thundered.

Rey flinched. Then swallowed and stood up from the wall, her hands in defensive fists again.

Kylo rubbed his hands through his hair. 

“An apprentice trusts their master in all things.”

“I will never trust you,” she spat.

“You will. If you want to survive.”

“Now that’s about the only thing I trust,” Rey bared her teeth. “Death threats.”

Kylo held his breath and bent to type in an order for medical supplies. Finally letting out his breath he looked up to see Rey watching his every little move.

“What were you doing with this anyway?” he asked. “And where did you get it?”

“Nowhere.”

“You were trying to open the keypad so you could rewire it and escape, weren’t you?”

Rey didn’t reply or make any move to indicate she had heard him, still glaring, bloody fist clenched.

His comm-link beeped, signalling the arrival of the medical droid. He turned and opened the door.

“Lord Ren,” the droid chirped, “I have the medical supplies you requested.” 

Kylo snatched the supplies out of its mechanical hand.

The droid continued as if nothing had happened, “Do you want me to apply-” 

He slammed the door shut on the droid before it could finish. “Here,” he offered the bottle and bandages out in his open palm.

But Rey made no move to retrieve them.

“You have to come get these in order to use them,” he sighed, not taking any steps towards her.

Rey didn’t move a muscle.

Curiously he reached out to see her in the Force. She was scared. Wary. 

Kylo let out a breath. “I’ll leave them on the bed.” Drawing on the Force, he lifted the bandages and tube of medicine to float from his hand towards the bed.

She flinched, pushing out with the Force and sending the objects flying away to hit the ceiling and fall to the floor, the bandages bouncing, unraveling from their neat roll.

Kylo made to move forward, but then took several steps back shaking his head, his eye twitching.

Her hazel eyes narrowed and her pupils dilated.

He turned his back and stomped out of the room to the dining table where a plate of food awaited him and began to eat without tasting any of it. He wasn’t even sure what he had eaten when he looked down and realized he had finished.

Sighing, he looked up to find Rey watching him. She had wrapped her hand up. It appeared the cut went down her thumb and across her palm from the way she had tied it off. 

“Come here,” he said, picking up her bowl of broth and pointing at her with the spoon.

Her brow wrinkled deeper, and he groaned inwardly at what he knew was to come.

“No. Not unless I can feed myself,” she growled.

“Fine,” he said stoically, reigning in his annoyance, and got up to empty the disgusting brown liquid down the drain of the sink, then placed it back on the tray with the other dirty dishes and left them to be picked up in the morning. “Go change into your sleep clothes,” he swallowed. “It’s time for bed.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry I've fallen behind on posting. I've been having some severe health problems. I can't say how much I appreciate all of your support and comments though <3. Fanfic is a lovely way to escape reality when reality sucks too much lol. Hopefully I'll be able to write some more. I'm taking a break from social media this week after having a bad interaction with someone online and I figured I needed to just forget about all negativity and focus on writing now that I'm able to again. 
> 
> Again, thanks to my two kickass betas aNerdObsessed and qotsisajakk for whipping this shit into shape lol


	7. Kýrios

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kýrios- (Greek) Master or Lord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't been able to post I so long. Been struggling with some health stuff. Thank you to those of you sticking with this story despite my short comings. Your support means everything.  
And thank you especially to my incredible beta's, aNerdObsessed (go read their incredible fics!)  
and qotsisajakk ! I really don't know what I'd do without their kickass critique and magical abilities to turn my shit writing into something palatable.You guys rule. I probably would have given up long ago or never started at all without them.

“Are you done yet?” Kylo Ren called from outside the fresher.

Rey struggled to finish dressing into her pajamas.

“Yes,” she snapped, throwing her sleeping shirt over her head quickly before rushing out of the fresher door. 

She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his dark presence sitting in his chair, worshipping at his dark shrine.

Rey looked up, and he rose out of the darkness like a spectre, pale face and chest materializing from the shadows, the red slash of his gruesome scar almost glowing, a corporeal body floating above blackness. As he stepped towards the light she could make out the scars that carved his torso, some old and white, others pink and knotted, ugly testaments to his ugly deeds. 

But the strangest thing about his bare skin was a black lace work pattern, like the flowering vines on Takodana, striking down his chest and arms. She’d seen it on his back too. What could cause such a mark, she couldn’t help but wonder? Probably something despicable and cruel, something only a creature without a soul could commit.

“You’re welcome to sleep on the pallet I ordered for you,” he said, then as he pushed past her into the fresher, muttered, “Or the hard floor.” 

Rey glared, skittering away and out into the other room. She didn’t go to the pallet though. Choosing to lean stubbornly against the counter seemed better than obeying him, even when her head swam from hunger and her legs began to shake.

When he came out of the fresher he barely paused to glance at her before turning to his own bed. “You can sleep wherever,” he said, pulling back the covers and lay down with a sigh before pulling his blankets up to his bare shoulders. “But I’m turning out the lights.”

Rey looked down at her pallet, then up to the monster turned away from her, watching his broad back rise and fall with each breath wasted on keeping him alive.

With a flick of his wrist the room was plunged into almost total darkness, except for a dim crimson glow. She turned to find it’s source in the other room, illuminating the helm of Darth Vader’s twisted visage from below as if it were floating above molten lava. It sent a chill down her spine and she quickly turned away.

There wasn’t a sound in the echo of the darkness except for their breathing. Rey held her breath, and listened to the deeper breaths of Kylo Ren. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, waiting, until the ache in her feet, especially her cast, and shaking in her limbs forced her to crawl to her pallet and lay down. Her eyes wanted to close, but she couldn’t let herself sleep. This could be her only chance. Rey waited until his breathing grew gradually longer, slower, heavier. 

Now was her time. Rey gently lifted herself into a crouched position, listening intently should the breathing of the slumbering monster change, and crept silently to the head of his bed. 

She could just make out the silhouette of his profile against his pillow. The proud line of his nose and slightly opened lips were tempting, but suffocation would take too long. Rey reached out both hands into the dark, recalling how Teedo had shown her once as a child to cut off the blood flowing in the neck of a human. 

Kylo Ren grunted, brow wrinkling and frown deepening. Rey froze, but his breathing resumed its even rhythm. Before she could lose her nerve, she shot out both hands, thumbs pressing on his arteries, fingers digging in savagely to his bare skin where she could feel the slight stubble of his beard. 

The shadow of his eyes flashed open, glinting like a snake’s as he reared up and ripped himself free of her grasp. He flung her back with the Force, sending her sliding on her back across the floor, knocking the wind from her lungs. Then his large body moved more lithely than it seemed capable of as he leapt off the bed and launched himself on her prone form, straddling her and squeezing her torso with his thighs.

Her ribs protested their entrapment. He wrapped his hand around her throat, almost able to touch his fingers together behind her skull. He began to apply light pressure to the sides of her neck, making her vision blur at the edges. 

This was definitely it. She’d pushed her luck one too many times. At least she had gone out fighting. By R’iia, this was a death she could be proud of.

“You know I’m really not a morning person,” he said softly above her, then lowered his head until they were nose to nose, eyes burning through the darkness into each other’s. “This is the best sleep I’ve had in months,” he growled, then lowered his lips to her ear, his warm breath tickling her skin, a low rumble in his chest, “I’m going to be sure you suffer as much as I do. If I don’t sleep neither do you, scavenger.”

The pads of his fingertips began to rub over her pulse points, a dangerous promise as Rey’s breath trembled in his hands.

“You know,” his words stirred a stray lock of hair against her face, “I’m not even angry.” He sat up, carefully balancing his weight so he didn’t crush her. “If you’re going to kill me I’d rather it be by your hands than the Force. If you ever succeed be sure it's by the jugular.” With a final firm squeeze his hand let go of her neck as he stood up and swung his leg over, then reached out a hand.

When she didn’t take it and remained frozen on the floor, he sighed. “I don’t hold it against you. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t make at least one attempt on my life. Now come on, get up.” He held out his hand again. 

Rey scowled and rolled to her side to stand by herself, back pedaling as fast as possible.

Kylo Ren’s eyelid twitched. “Will you sleep, or do you want to try killing me again? I’d rather get it over with now.”

“I thought you just said you haven’t been sleeping.”

“Exactly,” he replied, dark silhouette taking an ominous step closer until she could barely see the shadow of his facial features, dark eyes glittering in scarlet light.

“Then obviously you do just fine without sleep. You’ve been effectively torturing me despite it.”

Kylo Ren’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I haven’t been torturing you. When you are tortured, you will know it, and it won’t come with the gift of respite or food.”

“Food which you poured down the drain!”

“You had every opportunity to eat. That wasn’t my choice for you to go hungry. Your stubbornness at this point is the only thing torturing you.”

Rey opened her mouth to reply but he interrupted her.

“So, do you want to fight and then we can sleep after either I’m dead or I subdue you? Or will you allow yourself a repose, and go lay down?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I-”

“Exactly. This situation _ you _ created is ridiculous. So pick. And again, keep in mind I am not a morning person.” 

Rey crossed her arms. “Fine.”

Kylo Ren frowned at her for a moment longer, then turned and walked back to his bed, crawling under the covers and rolling back onto his side. 

Rey limped blindly back to her pallet. “Kriff,” she hissed when she tripped and stubbed her right big toe on the corner. 

_ Great. Now I hurt both legs. Maybe I should just sleep. Plenty of time to kill him later, which I will definitely do in the morning if I don’t get breakfast. _

Rey crawled into bed and rolled into a fetal position, wrapping her arms around her aching body to keep warm since Kylo Ren hadn’t deigned to give her a blanket. Her stomach growled. Maybe she’d get lucky and die of hypothermia before he woke them up for whatever hellish plan he had in store.

-~-

_ Cough _

_ In, In, Out. In, In, Out. _

_ Cough _

_ Rey held a cloth to her mouth, her lungs struggling to pull in air as she raced through the junkyard, sand swirling in the harsh winds. _

_ X’us R’iia. _

_ The vengeful goddess’ rage approached. She would kill all in her path. _

_ Rey thought maybe she should have joined the Teedo in the offering ceremony she had witnessed from afar, high above on a star destroyer. It seemed she would now be a victim of the goddess as her wrathful breath darkened the sun. _

_ Then a shadow appeared out of the darkness, mask reflecting her frightened face. _

Rey cried out, shooting upright and heart pounding in a cold sweat as she jolted awake to a hand shaking her shoulder, only to find her nightmare had once again followed her into the waking world.

Kylo Ren knelt above her, already dressed for the day in full surcoat and cowl about his shoulders, his gruesome scar starkly bisecting his severe expression. 

Trembling and wiping her brow, she was surprised she’d slept at all with that _ thing _ slumbering above her.

Without a word Kylo Ren handed her a pile of folded black cloth. When she didn’t take it immediately he placed it in front of her and then rose to his feet, one hand pressed lightly to his side where he’d been shot by Chewy’s bowcaster, and a datapad in his other hand, and walked into the other room to sit down in his chair across from his horrible shrine. Rey wondered again how he could be the son of Han Solo. 

Rubbing the sleep from her face, she violently shoved her memories of the old smuggler’s crooked grin he hid after quipping back at the near constant teasing from his first mate. Looking down at the clothes Kylo Ren had given her brought even more confusion at war in her mind. Yawning, she surveyed the rest of the room. Was this to be the only sight she saw upon waking everyday? Would she ever be awoken by the sun’s soft glowing warmth again? Or was she only to be locked in this eternal icy artificial light and durasteel mazes? She had once thought the Jakku desert was dead, but it was a fountain of life compared to this wasteland, her only companion that of the shadow of the ghost that had slept above her.

Pushing upright her head spun, the lightheadedness forcing her to lay back down to her pallet with a miserable groan, her stomach growling like a caged starving vronskr. Closing her eyes, she thought longing of the broth he had tempted her with yesterday that she had stupidly refused. It wasn’t much but she needed food. 

“Are you dressed yet?” Kylo Ren’s voice called.

“No,” Rey grunted.

“I’d suggest you hurry up. Breakfast should be here soon.”

At the hope of food Rey immediately shoved herself off her pallet, her head spinning, and padded to the fresher, in the other room, pointedly not looking at Kylo Ren. After changing she paused, and turned to the mirror above the sonic sink. She hadn’t been given time to look yesterday. Her hazel eyes widened in shock at the sickly creature before her. Thin fingers raised to gingerly touch the blanched skin, freckles standing out more starkly over the hollow cheeks. Her hair hung limp and oily, tangled in mats, but free of crusted sand and sweat. She needed to ask for a brush. She had only seen herself in cracked and filthy mirrors while pillaging shipwrecks, and this was the first time she had ever really seen herself clearly. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but certainly it hadn’t been this pitiful and weak. Squeezing her eyes shut she bowed her head. So this was what she’d look like, forever, when she was frozen after inevitably getting pushed out into space. 

Praying the food came quickly, Rey turned and limped out the door, light headed and slightly dizzy, and tried to ignore the growing nausea. Once out she headed straight to her pallet and lay back down, closing her eyes and holding her stomach.

She heard his soft bootsteps near until they stopped next to her head. Rey cracked an eye and looked up to find him staring at her with his usual unreadable expression that seemed to barely contain the constant rage simmering beneath. His hair was snarled by sleep, like he’d only given it a half hearted brush through with his fingers, not much better than hers. She kept waiting for him to say something, to make some threat, but he just observed quietly. It was unnerving and made Rey want to get up and race to the other side of the room, but she didn’t think that she could. He’d done a fine job of keeping her half starved during her captivity.

There was a beep at the door. Kylo Ren kept staring at her a moment, then crossed the room and let in a droid carrying a tray of food. The droid beeped as he took the tray into his hands without a word, before shutting the door and taking it to the table.

Rey sniffed the air, and let out a quiet moan at the tantalizing scent. Slowly she propped herself on her elbows. He sat down without even glancing at Rey and began to eat as delicately as he had yesterday. 

Uncaring of how she got her food, just that she got some, Rey struggled to her feet, and stumbled into the other room, nearly bent in half at the waist. There was only one chair at the small table. Her stomach ached and her head swam. She leaned against the wall.

He ignored her and continued digging his spoon into the lumpy brownish porridge. It looked like the most delicious food in the world since she hadn’t eaten anything since the broth he fed her yesterday morning before seeing Snoke. The memory of her mind being assaulted by his oily dark intentions sent icy fear through her veins.

Shaking herself, she cleared her throat, hoping Kylo Ren would offer her the second bowl of gruel she could see steaming on the tray, knowing better than to hope to get any of the meat of fruit or bread stacked high on his plate.

“Can I have my breakfast?” she sighed. “Please?” 

Kylo Ren turned to her finally and swallowed. “As soon as I’m done,” and then went back to eating, finishing the bowl and starting in on the other food. Rey put her forehead against the coolness of the durasteel, shivering slightly, legs trembling. 

Soon the sound of his spoon scraping the plate clean pulled her head up. He took his time, but then picked up the small bowl of porridge. He beckoned with his gloved hand.

Rey knew what he wanted.

Diverting her eyes, she gulped and took reluctant steps closer, her ragged hair falling in her face, fingers fidgeting with the hem of the black tunic. His black boots came into focus. Stopping, she took a deep breath and glanced out from the matted nest of hair. He tilted his head, a small crease between his brows as he searched her face, their heights finally eye to eye. He looked down at the ground meaningfully, and back up to hold her gaze.

Holding her breath, she closed her eyes and bit her lip. It felt like there was a weight weighing heavier and heavier upon her shoulders until it forced her knees to bend. 

Rey kneeled beside the chair of Kylo Ren and looked up at his hungry visage.

As he had the day before, he scooped up a spoonful, holding the bowl underneath to prevent spills, and lowered it down to her. Rey closed her eyes and opened her lips to take the first bite of the mushy porridge. She almost moaned. Even though it was bland it tasted like heaven. Instead she concentrated on mindlessly swallowing, thinking of early mornings eating portions inside her AT-AT, and tried to forget where she was and who was feeding her.

She opened her mouth again, but the spoon did not return. Blinking her eyes open she found Kylo Ren putting her empty bowl on the tray. It was over. Her stomach was fuller, though not nearly enough, but at least she felt more clear headed. He wiped his hands on a napkin then passed her a cup of water. While she gulped it down quickly, scared he’d take it away, he typed something into his data-pad.

“I’m going to be leaving you here alone for awhile. I expect you to be practicing what I taught you yesterday. I want you to find me across the ship. If I don’t feel you make contact at least once there will be consequences.”

Rey wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “Consequences? Like what?”

He turned to regard her for a moment before answering, “I doubt you’d like to find out,” and picked up the tray without another word. Rey scrambled out of his way as he pushed back his chair, straightened to his full height, and walked past her. She didn’t turn around until she heard the door close.

Scowling, she returned to her pallet and laid down on her side, curling up to keep herself warm. The porridge had helped a bit, but the air was still chilling.

_ I can’t believe I just let a monster feed me like that, again, _ Rey thought miserably. _ I wasn’t restrained, I could have refused, but...I needed to eat, to, to regain my strength. Just - don’t think about it. Soon I’ll be stronger. Then I’ll go back home. _

But would she? Would she ever see her AT-AT again? Her own bed, her little spine barrel in its pot, little dolls she’d made of the flight suits she’d scavenged from the bodies of dead pilots? It wasn’t much, but it was hers.

Suddenly the door to the room slid open. Rey jumped, scared of being caught lounging idly.

But it wasn’t her captor that sauntered into the room.

It was Lyssa Ren, her gleaming mask swiveling to Rey as she closed the door behind her with a wave of her hand. Still in black, she was wearing a more relaxed ensemble than at their previous meeting, only clothed in a simple black tunic under a high necked jacket and pants tucked into her boots, not a scrap of skin showing.

“Hello, scavenger,” she purred through her vocoder as she prowled closer.

Rey heaved herself upright, tilting her chin slightly to gaze upward at the imposing woman’s impressive height as she crowded into her space.

“I’ve been waiting for him to leave all morning,” she said almost hungrily.

“What do you want?” Rey finally managed to ask. Kylo Ren probably wouldn’t appreciate that Lyssa Ren was in here, obviously without his permission. And there was no telling what he’d do when he found out. No doubt he’d take it out on her. But how was she supposed to make a murderous Knight of Ren leave somewhere she wanted to be?

“You, of course. Just a little chat between us girls,” she paused. “What happened to your hand?”

Rey looked down at the bandage wrapped around her thumb and palm. “Nothing.”

“Did you leave another mark on him?”

“What?” Rey asked, bewildered.

“Did you try to cut him again?” the other woman put a hand on her hip, as if she were amused by something. “I hope you succeeded.”

“No, I-I just accidentally cut myself,” Rey nervously licked her cracked lips.

“Pity,” Lyssa shrugged. “So, maybe we can start with you telling me a bit about yourself?”

Rey swallowed. “There’s not really anything to know, I’m just a scavenger.”

“I find that fascinating. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting many scavengers, and never a Force sensitive one. Did your abilities help you in your... profession?”

“No. I didn’t know I had them,” she shrugged, trying to be nonchalant.

Lyssa’s gloved fingers tapped her hip. “Huh. How old are you?”

“I, um, I-” Rey muttered, her cheeks warming.

Lyssa let out a small musical laugh. “I take that to mean you don’t know?”

Rey’s eyes steeled over and she crossed her arms. “So what do you really want? Out with it?”

“Oh I knew I liked you. Glad you aren’t a pushover, he needs someone to beat him down every once in a while or he gets antsy. Makes him more manageable and my life easier,” Lyssa stepped backwards and leaned against the counter top. “Did your family come from Jakku as well?”

“I-” Rey thought about lying, but knew that the more skilled Force user would probably know if she did, and she did not know how this Knight was prone to reacting when she didn’t get her way. If Kylo Ren was any indicator, Rey didn’t want to find out. She stood up straighter. “I don’t know where they came from.”

“You’re an orphan then?”

“No. I was waiting for my parents before I was dragged here.”

Lyssa chuckled, nodding to herself. “I see. Well, I’m glad your wait came to an end. Now tell me, what little tricks of the Force has my captain been teaching you so far?”

“Um, basics.”

“Hmph. Basics,” she said as if the word had offended her. “Like what?”

“Well, I just- yesterday he had me sit down and look at our Force signatures, but he wanted me to find-” Rey stopped herself, not sure what she should or should not be revealing.

Lyssa sensed her hesitancy and perked up, taking a step closer. “Yes?”

“Just find things, in, the For-”

“What did he want you to find,” Lyssa hummed curiously, prowling closer.

Rey decided to go for a half truth. “Just to see if there were any other Force users on board the ship.”

“And were there?”

“You showed up shortly afterward.”

“No, did _ you _ find any Force users, on your own.”

“I, well, no I wasn’t able to, but-” Rey suddenly felt like she had revealed some grave weakness without realizing it. 

Lyssa stopped abruptly a few feet away. “I never did trust him not to go too far,” she echoed Kylo Ren’s words from the day before. 

Rey’s eyebrows rose and then narrowed. “What do you mean by too far?”

“He’s always been prone to give into his weaker side. It seems he’s teaching you the same.”

“Weaker side?” 

“Strength is only forged through fire, my Master always said. No use bothering wading through the shallows when you can leap straight into the ocean.”

“I’m from a desert planet,” Rey said flatly.

“Then you either figure out how to swim to shore or you drown, little desert rat.”

Bristling, Rey stepped closer to the other woman. “Then I just won’t jump in.”

Lyssa’s masked face moved back, then she tilted it and let out an amused breath. “What point is there keeping a hound if it can’t hunt? No use waiting to see if it will ever earn its keep when there are others of better breeding to train.”

“Stop talking in riddles. Am I rat or a hound to you?”

“Whatever you choose to be,” Lyssa chuckled again. Suddenly she whipped around, fingering the opening of her jacket. 

Rey tensed and wrinkled her brow in alarm and confusion.

The door opened.

Kylo Ren stepped over the threshold with a swirl of his cloak. His mask still covered his face, but Rey didn’t need to see his expression to know that his stiff posture meant he was furious.

“Knight Lyssa,” he growled ominously through his vocoder, “what an expected surprise. I knew you’d show up eventually.” 

“My lord,” she nodded her head respectfully.

“And what brings you so early to my chambers.?”

“Just popped by for a little girl time. You wouldn’t understand. Period talk.”

His head turned immediately to Rey, who shifted under his scrutiny. After looking her up and down, he turned back to his knight. “And what did this chat entail?”

“It seems our cycles are matching up, it was meant to be.”

“Lyssa,” he snapped.

“There’s just something about little orphan desert slaves, isn’t there?”

Rey’s mouth dropped open. She was not an orphan or a slave!

Kylo Ren’s fist tightened, the leather of his glove creaking softly, but then his fingers flexed and relaxed. “I’m glad you had such a good time, but my apprentice needs to study now. I’ll show you out.” He strode to the door and opened it, beckoning his knight through in no uncertain terms.

Lyssa didn’t argue, her usual swagger a little faster than usual, but turned around before entering the corridor, “We’ll talk later, Rey.” 

“No, you won’t,” Kylo Ren said with finality, and closed the door to shut off any kind of argument. As soon as they were alone his shoulders drooped ever so slightly as he programmed a code into the keypad with sharp punches of his nimble fingers. “Hopefully that will keep her out,” he grumbled.

When he turned around to face Rey, she braced herself for whatever rebuttal was in store and took a few steps to the right and sideled around the bed to put some kind of barrier between them.

None came. He beckoned her to follow him into the other side room, walking gingerly, and then carefully lowering himself into his chair with a soft groan, almost as if he were holding back a cry of pain. Rey followed hesitantly, unsure how to react or interpret his reactions. She stopped between him and the shrine to his grandfather, scrutinizing the rigid way he held himself him up. He hadn’t been like this when he’d left, had he? Or was she imagining things?

Before she could wonder anymore, he silently pointed at the spot directly in front of his feet. Sitting cross legged, she shivered, as if she could feel the ghost of Vader watching them.

After a moment of silence Kylo Ren asked her, “I did not feel you even once try to practice the skills I taught you. Why is that?”

“I, well, I was about to but she just showed up and I couldn’t get her to leave...”

“So it wasn’t because you tried and failed, you just didn’t even do it?”

“I told you,” Rey grit her teeth, “I was interrupted before I could start.” 

“There are no excuses. If I tell you to do something, you do it.”

“But-”

“No excuses!” he slammed his fist on the armrest.

Rey jumped, eyes round.

Silence stretched and trembled palpably in the air.

“Now, apprentice,” he took a steadying breath, rasping through his ask, “show me what you learned yesterday.”

Rey closed her eyes and tried to focus, to sense the comfort of the glowing warmth of lapis lazuli shimmering around her that she had discovered the day before. 

But she couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t shake the cold emanating from the mask at her back and the heat radiating off him sitting above her. 

“Are you even trying?” he snapped.

“Yes.” She grit her teeth.

“Yes, Master.”

Rey snorted. “I am not calling you-”

Suddenly he was all around her, a furious storm of red waves and black winds, smothering her, boiling at the boundaries of her signature. He was rage, an inescapable agony, and among the red and black she felt flagellating hatred. She choked, trying to breath. Air flowed through her lungs, but her whole being was being suffocated. There was something else there, it was just out of reach, if she could just grasp it long enough...

Then as fast as the storm had enveloped her, he was gone.

Rey fell back onto the cold floor, wheezing harshly as her clothes soaked through with sweat.

“Who am I?” His voice was distant, but she knew now the extent of the fire it was keeping in check behind his cool facade.

Her heart was pounding erratically. She could still feel it, the rage, even in his absence. Her Force signature seemed to have taken on pieces of his, or maybe it was merely mirroring it, for now amongst the cool lapis lazuli and warm gold were open scars of scarlet and black. 

“Apprentice, who am I?"

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, what do you think will be Rey's answer? In the next chapter will she call him Master or not? I'll give a shout out and link to your ao3 or social media of choice to whoever guesses correctly! In your comment let me know which you think will happen, why, and copy paste the link to whichever account you want (don't worry about embedding it, I'll do that at the end of the next chapter).


	8. ANNOUNCEMENT: Editing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not abandoned! Re-editing!

Alright everyone, I first want to say I am sorry to those who have been waiting for this fic to continue. I did not lie when I said in the tags I wouldn't abandon this fic. However, I have some very severe chronic health issues that have made the last months since I last updated an absolute hell, and I really was too ill to write. I am hoping I will feel more up to writing regularly, but I'm going to take it slower instead of forcing myself to write 2-5K in a day. Hopefully that will be more sustainable.

Now! It will be a little while until I post the next chapter, but when I do, I recommend you go back and reread all previous 7 chapters because I realized that I left a huge plot hole! I know you guys haven't noticed or know what I am talking about because it hasn't come up yet in the plot, but all the build I had planned on in my notes I somehow completely forgot to incorporate *facepalm*. I also have learned a great deal more about prose since I wrote these early chapters, and I know my writing was severely lacking that, so I'm going to be going back and possibly rewriting quite a bit. Luckily I caught all this at the beginning of this fic so there's not too much for you to re-read. If you don't want to re-read, totally fine. I think you should be able to continue the story, you just might miss out on some foreshadowing and such, but hey, it'll just be an even bigger surprise!

Thanks for your comments, kudos, and support. I hope to have this all up in the next month. Subscribe and keep a look-out for that e-mail, or go follow my tumblr, 

@angstywriterangst

I always post updates on my tumblr.

Anyway, sorry if I got anyone's hopes up with this update that turned out not to be an update but just an annoying announcement. Hopefully you'll be able to bear with me a little longer and come back when everything is polished up and the real chapter 8 is finished.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what did you think? Where are they taking Rey? Why didn't they kill her? What do you think of Hux? Honest but kind reviews are always appreciated! Also, if there's any confusion, this story picks up right after Star Killer is destroyed at the end of The Force Awakens. I think I made that pretty clear, but ya never know. You can find me @angstywriterangst on Tumblr


End file.
